Team Ranking: December 2019 and EPC Winner

We have updated our global team ranking — powered by EGB.com — for December 2019 and announced the winner of this month's EPC Shooting Stars prize, awarded to the best climber inside the top 30.

December closed out the competitive season and featured quite the list of events, from smaller LANs, such as DreamHack Open Sevilla and cs_summit 5, to the highly anticipated finals of ESL Pro League Season 10 and the BLAST Pro Series, as well as the concluding Big Event of the year, EPICENTER 2019.

mousesports had a dominant stretch in December with two titles in the bag

Despite a tremendous amount of action taking place in December, there were few significant adjustments in the top five of the rankings, with Astralis comfortably perched on top of the leaderboard, sporting a 253 point cushion over the ambitious MOUZ roster, which enjoyed a strong end to the year. Evil Geniuses conceded their second-place position to Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's side, sinking to fifth on the list after failing to maintain the form that had seen them win ESL One New York and StarSeries i-League Season 8.

Below is the current top 30 table as of January 6, 2020, which goes more in-depth into how the points are distributed—or you can check our special page, where you will be able to find the latest, weekly version of our ranking. You can see the lineup for each team by hovering over their name in the table.

Counter-Strike World ranking on January 6th, 2020

RANK

TEAM

ACHV

FORM

LAN

TOTAL
POINTS

+/-

1.

Astralis

500

185

300

985

-

2.

MOUZ

315

200

217

732

+7

3.

Liquid

359

93

162

614

-

4.

fnatic

244

109

201

554

-

5.

Evil Geniuses

314

53

158

525

-3

6.

Vitality

220

72

129

421

+1

7.

100 Thieves

130

70

126

326

-2

8.

FaZe

127

60

116

303

-2

9.

Natus Vincere

136

76

77

289

+5

10.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

125

52

90

267

-2

11.

G2

109

90

63

262

+4

12.

ENCE

116

49

60

225

-2

13.

FORZE

61

92

36

189

+3

14.

MIBR

75

40

50

165

-2

15.

FURIA

87

24

52

163

-2

16.

HEROIC

57

58

46

161

+1

17.

Virtus.pro

95

22

21

138

-6

18.

Cloud9

18

65

46

129

+16

19.

CR4ZY

45

38

36

119

-1

20.

North

40

55

23

118

+2

21.

MAD Lions

37

47

29

113

-2

22.

GODSENT

24

44

28

96

-1

23.

TYLOO

29

39

23

91

-3

24.

Renegades

23

37

20

80

-1

25.

Spirit

15

42

19

76

+4

26.

OG

9

41

23

73

NEW TEAM

27.

ex-Virtus.pro

17

25

18

60

-2

28.

Sprout

7

21

21

49

-4

29.

Syman

9

24

16

49

+23

30.

Illuminar

9

29

6

44

-3

Please note that the +/- gain on this table differs from our weekly rankings page, and it is related to the ranking update of December 2nd.

mousesports storm into second

December was an outstanding month for the MOUZ camp as the team managed to build on the victory they had achieved in late November at the CS:GO Asia Championships, held in Shanghai. The roster participated at three large LAN events over the course of the following month, reaching the grand final in all of them.

Both the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals and cs_summit 5 saw karrigan's charges lift trophies, with the team managing to overcome difficult circumstances in California, where they finished the tournament with just three of their starting players after Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker had been ruled out of the event due to visa issues and karrigan had been forced to miss the last two maps of the final against G2 to catch a flight. EPICENTER 2019 was where the team's LAN hot streak was cut short, as a stunning showing from Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut in the title decider denied MOUZ a flawless conclusion to the year.

mousesports lept seven ranks in the space of a single month

Off the back of this unprecedented showing, MOUZ jumped to second from last month's ninth, exceeding their ambitions to breach top five by the end of the year. In their current state, MOUZ undeniably deserve the position and look like a major force to be reckoned with in 2020.

Evil Geniuses sink to fifth

Considered one of the premium teams in the top echelons of the scene, Evil Geniuses were unable to contest for titles in December while not strictly demonstrating poor results. The most disappointing showing came at the ESL Pro League Finals, where the team crashed out in the first round of the playoffs following a defeat to eventual champions, MOUZ.

Evil Geniuses ended the year with a semi-final run at EPICENTER 2019, where they managed to keep their composure despite missing Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte for their opening two matches due to visa issues. With the North American star back in action, EG fell short against FORZE in the decider match but managed to beat Natus Vincere in the first round of the playoffs before getting knocked out by MOUZ once again.

Evil Geniuses are catching up on some much-needed rest heading in 2020

A saturated schedule took their toll on Evil Geniuses, as was expressed in an interview with tarik, and had they been more selective with participation from November onwards, their rank might have been higher than what we currently see. Batteries on full, the geniuses will look to showcase their full potential with the start of the coming competitive season.

Cloud9 back into the top 20 with ATK signing

Cloud9 once more find themselves in the top 20 of the world rankings, a placement last held by the previous iteration of the roster in August 2019. The return to this echelon was made off the back of the signing of the talented ATK roster, which impressed at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals by eliminating North and G2.

The former ATK squad aims to put Cloud9 back on the radar

The results in Denmark were not as surprising for those that had been following the squad beforehand, as prior to arriving in Odense the team had demonstrated solid results against some of the fiercest contenders from their region in ECS and in the ESL Pro League, including MIBR, Sharks, Singularity, eUnited and even Liquid.

With burning ambition, expanded access to resources and heightened motivation derived from joining a brand new organisation, the newly-signed team may well be the catalyst that Cloud9 needs to close the chapter on a string of unsuccessful roster adjustments and finally embrace some stability.

EPC winner: OG secure Shooting Stars prize

OG were the most improved team of December, landing them the EPC Shooting Stars prize, a seven-day bootcamp for six people at the Kinguin Esports Performance Center in Warsaw, Poland. The European roster, which was previously unranked, soared to 26th after a semi-final run at cs_summit 5, where they finished in third place in the round-robin stage with a 6-4 record before losing out to MOUZ in the semi-finals.

OG sprung into 26th off the back of a semi-final run at cs_summit 5

With their semi-final appearance in Los Angeles, Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's charges outdid Syman, who jumped 23 places, and the new Cloud9 roster, which moved up 16 slots when compared to the November monthly update.