CSGO Tier Rankings: IEM Chicago, BLAST Copenhagen and cs_summit

Three huge events happened these past few weeks with IEM taking a visit to Chicago, BLAST hosting an event in Copenhagen and finally cs_summit having the third iteration of their local-feeling event. We saw two new teams emerge onto the playing field and our rankings.

Tier Rankings compiled by Jamie "PalmtopPitbull" Wert (@PalmtopPitbull on Twitter) and Grady Hooker (@GradyHooker on Twitter).

S-Tier

Astralis

A-Tier

FaZe

NaVi

Liquid

B-Tier

MIBR

mousesports

North

NiP

BIG

NRG

ENCE

C-Tier

HellRaisers

Fnatic

compLexity

TyLoo

OpTic

D-Tier

Kinguin

Heroic

Cloud9

Renegades

ex-SS

Gambit

Rogue

Vega

AVANGAR

Ghost

eUnited

LDLC

Luminosity

Reasons for Selected Teams (Movement or Roster Changes)

MIBR (-1) - MiBR just has not performed well against top-tier competition in their last two LANs. We need more consistency from them in order for them to reappear in A Tier.

G2 (-1) - G2 disappeared at cs_Summit, and with looming roster changes, things look less than great for this French team.

LDLC (Debut) - LDLC suprised a lot of people at IEM Chicago and took games off of some big names. They have a promising future as a team.

Luminosity (Debut) - Like LDLC, Luminosity performed very well at IEM Chicago, making top teams work for their wins and sweeping a couple D Tier teams.

Imperial (Removed) - It wasn't what they did, so much as we needed to move someone for LDLC and Luminosity, and Imperial just hasn't had any recent results to convince us to keep them.

Fragsters (Removed) - Much like Imperial, Fragsters just haven't had any recent results that kept us from dropping them for up and coming teams.

Explanation of Tiers

S-Tier: Teams you expect to win every tournament they are in. They are the current kings of the Counter-Strike scene.

A-Tier: Teams that can be expected to easily beat teams in the tiers below, and may even upset an S-Tier team once in a while. Regularly makes the playoffs.

B-Tier: Teams that; Have shown recent potential or Former A-Tier teams with recent and extended periods of poor play.

C-Tier: Teams that; Have had decent showings at recent international LANs or Teams that may have dropped off recently, but have historically decent placements and can potentially make the playoffs.

D-Tier: Teams that have appeared at a few international LANs recently, likely via qualifiers, but have not shown skill consistently on the level of the other tiers. Rarely make playoffs if they ever have.

These rules are not exact, and they are not hard and fast. There are always exceptions. If there were not, it would become impossible to rank teams due to the nature of the game.