FaZe climb to No. 2 in world rankings after claiming first title in nine months

27-3-2023 20:10

The Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led team close in on G2, who went out early in the EPL playoffs.

FaZe have secured the second step on the podium in the latest HLTV.org ranking following their title charge at ESL Pro League Season 17. This marks the first time the karrigan-led squad has lifted a trophy since their victory at IEM Cologne 2022 in July, and the first time they are ranked in the top two since November.

Their win over Cloud9 in the grand finals of the event also secured the last notch required to conquer the fourth season of the Intel Grand Slam and the $1,000,000 that comes with it. The feat immortalized FaZe alongside Astralis, Liquid, and Natus Vincere as the only teams that have claimed ESL's most exclusive prize since its inception in 2017.

FaZe are in the top two for the first time since November 7

FaZe dominated the first half of 2022 following their singing of Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool from MOUZ in the winter break. The European squad claimed titles at IEM Katowice, ESL Pro League Season 15, PGL Major Antwerp, and IEM Cologne during an incredible run that saw them skyrocket to the No. 1 in the HLTV ranking and stay there for 13 weeks — the longest-ever streak for an international side.

Unfortunately for the European mix, they were unable to continue on their rampage following the summer tournament break, and the title of the best team in the world was taken by Vitality after their win at EPL Season 16. The French organization only held it briefly, and the top spot was subsequently held at various intervals by Outsiders, HEROIC, and G2.

FaZe win ESL Pro League Season 17 and secure the Intel Grand Slam

Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and company continue to hold the No. 1 spot in the rankings despite their early exit from the EPL knockouts as their accomplishments from late 2022 and early 2023 continue to hold the team at the top. BLAST Premier World Final, the earliest victory for this G2 iteration, still holds significant weight on their ranking, while FaZe can barely count on their victories from last year as their impact on the ladder continues to fade.

Other notable changes in the rankings this week include ENCE's return to the top ten for the first time since the team lost Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi to Vitality in August, and Virtus.pro's comeback to the list as both ESL and BLAST lifted their bans on the organization.

Astralis and Ninjas in Pyjamas both continue on a ranking freefall following their 17-20th exits from EPL Season 17 earlier in March. The two squads now sit outside the top 15 after a poor start to the year despite high-profile roster changes in the last five months.

Counter-Strike World ranking on March 27th, 2023

RANK

TEAM

ACHV

FORM

LAN

TOTAL
POINTS

+/-

500

200

300

1000

FaZe

467

138

284

889

HEROIC

456

142

269

867

-1

Natus Vincere

334

162

242

738

-1

Liquid

323

143

558

-1

Vitality

266

180

531

-1

Cloud9

237

121

149

507

Virtus.pro

252

143

473

-2

ENCE

130

306

+11

10.

MOUZ

160

278

11.

fnatic

122

248

-2

12.

FURIA

128

227

13.

Complexity

219

-5

14.

Spirit

103

204

-2

15.

103

193

-4

16.

Astralis

182

-3

17.

FORZE

174

18.

BIG

161

-2

19.

paiN

154

20.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

139

-3

21.

Eternal Fire

131

-2

22.

IHC

112

-4

23.

Movistar Riders

106

24.

MIBR

101

-1

25.

26.

27.

28.

-3

29.

Bad News Eagles

-7

30.

Monte

Forst

2023-03-27 20:10

3 replies

not even no.1 wtf

2023-03-27 20:11

Not in english class atleast

2023-03-27 20:14

1 reply

LUL

2023-03-27 22:17

bazinga

Have to be 1st

14 replies

G2 won back to back big tournaments… each being more important than pro league

2023-03-27 21:13

13 replies

blast world finals definitely isn't more prestigious than EPL

2023-03-27 21:17

12 replies

EPL isn’t at all lmao

2023-03-27 21:21

Blast literally last 4 matches and it's over, EPL involves all the big teams, if you can make it far that's tells you something.

2023-03-27 23:07

It is, please stop comparing a mickey mouse month long tournament of t3 and t4 teams versus a strictly t1 tournament

2023-03-27 21:28

9 replies

Who in tier 1 wasn't in this tourny?

2023-03-27 22:54

8 replies

Who in tier 1 actually took this tourney seriously? No one considering the prize winnings is so low. Blast final is a massive year long culmination of the best teams. You can tell EPL isn’t that serious with how many bottom feeder teams made it late into the playoffs

2023-03-27 23:49

4 replies

jesus how many excuses are you gonna pull out? g2 were just shit this tournament no need to be a cockmuncher about it

2023-03-28 00:01

Lol sure thing vitality

2023-03-29 02:12

I think they all took it seriously especially Navi and Cloud 9

2023-03-28 01:14

pick 1: > massive year long culmination of the best teams > OG

2023-03-28 05:37

Still doesnt correlate to my statement at all, a lot of teams like faze were in groups with free wins. Put them in a group like how it was in katowice recently they dont qualify

2023-03-28 01:33

2 replies

who gave them a free win? Wildcard teams can be the most dangerous look how far Forze got. You have to play a lot of games to win that trophy and anyone can take you out

2023-03-28 04:13

2023-03-28 12:58

oh yeah baby

dethrone G2 :D

2023-03-27 20:12

Good to see V.P back in the rankings Clap

That NIP ranking is kinda sad tbh

2023-03-27 20:13

Lowest I seen in ages.

Deserved tho.

2023-03-27 20:15

That’s what you get for Alexi-B

2023-03-27 20:22

who MOUZ top 1 anyways

ence top10 W

Great

Rare Atom 26th? hahahaha nice ranking. not even 126th

NaVi > Heroic.

Top 1 next week

2023-03-27 20:18

who? sunpayus? i agree

2023-03-27 20:52

Who actually cares about this shit, lmao.

2023-03-27 20:19

nip flair ahhahaha

2023-03-28 04:30

LULquid better than C9 and Vitality? hahaha

2023-03-27 20:20

Why are you surprised? They should be higher than cheatroic too

2023-03-27 20:25

warra victory vs pain

2023-03-27 20:37

Wow, G2 still at perfect 1000. Unexpected

2023-03-27 20:23

g2 1000 points?? wow

Nice.

...while FaZe takes the 2nd spot, s1mple makes Valorant fans upset youtube.com/watch?v=WP4-4tRWN98 :D

2023-03-27 20:29

G2 can't have max points in Form/Lan when they just didn't make to quarters

2023-03-27 20:32

Forze & paiN above NiP, oh my

2023-03-27 20:35

thx to aleksibot calling

2023-03-27 20:38

Forze was not even a top 30 team two weeks a go and they took down Navi and Ence. They went way up in the rankings.

2023-03-28 04:41

Underperformed for 9 months and still awarded the grand slam. Think it’s a little forgiving. Should add a point system where you lose points if you underperform or something. Makes it more interesting.

2023-03-27 20:39

They could reduce the time window for a grand slam to happen. That's the only change I could see them making

2023-03-27 20:40

5 replies

They should, it feels weird that they complete the grand slam 3/4 of a year after they won their last event.

2023-03-27 22:47

same rules for everyone yet not everyone can get it done. You just want to diminish the accomplishment.

2023-03-27 22:55

Agreed it feels underwhelming. It’s been 9 months since they last won something but were still in contention to win the grand slam. I get it’s hard to win but it feels like it will be common to win. 4 seasons and 4 victors. Just feel like it should be more challenging with consequences. Point reduction if bad performance. Stuff like that.

2023-03-28 12:22

Considering there has been 4 seasons of It and a grand slam victor every season. I think they should add point deduction system overtime. Unless they want the grand slam to be a common victory but I always thought it was supposed to be more of a challenge. I feel like somwtbing needs to change. It’s just weird that it started in 2021 and it’s been over a year and they still were in contention.

2023-03-28 12:20

That's not how grand slam seasons work. A season does not have fixed length, it starts from the first event after a team wins the previous season and ends only when a team wins the grand slam. So in the current system each season has to have a winner, thus 4 seasons because there have been 4 winners, and a season can range anywhere from really short (Liquid won season 2 in just 5 events in 5 months) to quite long (Navi won season 3 which spanned 13 events in over 2 years, though the length is partially due to a bunch of cancellations during covid). Maybe a better argument would be that 4 winners in 6 years is a bit too many. There is also already a deduction system, an event win would no longer count after 10 events have passed. You could shorten that window to make wins rarer, but introducing points would be unnecessarily complicated imo, we already have to deal with ESL and Blast using a bunch of different systems for qualifications to their tournaments.

2023-03-29 20:13

well, about "underperforming", other team underperformed WAY MORE than FaZe in that time line (IGS season 4), so its pretty fair overall FaZe have been superior team in terms of achievements last 1,5 years compared to any team even though they didn't perform as well as in first half of 2022

2023-03-27 20:59

Last 1 year you mean? They started winning in the beginning of 2022 not the end of 2021

2023-03-27 22:44

Cry

2023-03-27 23:14

site got a NiKo bias lol

paiN gaming > NiP

2023-03-27 20:48

Sure G2 doesn't really deserve 1000 points but they are still the best team rn. Don't fully understand why faze fans are crying so much about G2, they most likely forgot that G2 was more or less untouchable until pro league

I don't think FaZe's fans cry, it seem that G2 fans cry way more about FaZe's achievements, IGS is harder win than major or couple normal tournaments Its hardest thing to win in CSGO by far and most G2 fans get really angry because FaZe did it but G2 couldn't

2023-03-27 21:01

7 replies

Why are you fake flairing, you are in the comments coping about that g2 are still number 1 with 1000 points when its a fact. Youre on fazes tip when you have a g2 flair. G2 is in your head rent free, actually very sad

2023-03-27 21:37

6 replies

0/5 for trying

2023-03-29 12:24

great response from a fake flair, genuine question. What do you gain from being a fake flair and posting horrible comments?

2023-03-30 04:45

This time I give you 0,5/5 for trying ba1t, your level is very bad, for I give half-point for trying

2023-03-30 16:16

Ok, must be suffering from no social interaction

2023-03-30 20:11

I give 0,1/5 for trying less

2023-03-30 20:49

2023-03-30 21:44

Untouchable? 1 title vs 4 titles? Lol

2023-03-28 07:10

"1 title vs 4 titles" common L from faze fanbase so you're just gonna ignore the fact that after cologne faze was dogshit until now and G2 won not 1 but 2 trophies in last 3 months

2023-03-28 07:48

FaZe literally made Grand FInals in Fall Finals and semis in World FInals, both times losing to the eventual tournament winner, how were they dogshit at the end of the year?

2023-03-29 17:56

Dogshit was an exaggeration, my bad. I meant that they were not as dominant as first half. Sure they made the playoffs but they looked not as motivated as up to Cologne. Although now they look more like their old selves as a team

2023-03-29 18:14

Hopefully soon nr. 1 again :D

2023-03-27 20:56

It's HLTV ranking people. Everyone knows it is a ranking built by a bunch of journalists. Hardly a reliable ranking that anyone would bet their money on it. Take it with a grain of salt.

2023-03-27 21:02

ez G2

Why didn't G2 lose points?

2023-03-27 21:18

You loose points overtime and it has not been long enough for them to drop in points. That is how HLTV does it at least

2023-03-28 04:43

It makes sense. Thanks, dude!

2023-03-28 16:00

It did not feel like that long

2023-03-27 21:25

Why does G2 still have 200 Form points?

G2 form 200. Ok

2023-03-27 21:29

Today i learned 138 > 162 > 200

1000 points for g2 still. doesn't make sense.

2023-03-27 21:38

2023-03-28 04:44

G2 - 1000 LOL

2023-03-27 21:41

Ropz solo album when? > FaZe dominated the first half of 2022 following their *singing* of Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Koo

2023-03-27 21:42

Why have g2 lost 0 points yet?

2023-03-27 21:58

Navi > heroic

2023-03-27 22:19

This hltv ranking is a sh*t. G2 still 1000 points and n1 after being top-12 on the last tournament (back to their usual performance), won only 2 first places before and 1 tier-20 rmr. And heroic 3rd with 4-6th and 5-8th places... It's a joke

2023-03-27 22:40

deserved

2023-03-27 22:46

liquid 5nd undeserved

2023-03-27 22:52

Well deserved

2023-03-27 22:57

G2 fans desperately defending 1 month era

2023-03-27 23:13

Fair ranking

2023-03-27 23:18

classic hltv ranking

2023-03-27 23:45

eternal fire not deserved

2023-03-28 00:09

ENCE +11 is total joke Win rate 55.6% Last 3 months defeats against Complexity, HONORIS, BIG, Eternal Fire, FORZE the team that played sand won 2 matches and plus 11 in the ranking is a real joke...

2023-03-28 00:26

How the hell G2 still 1000 pts and #1? Are you mad? Outsiders won Rio Major and their 1000 lasted for 2 weeks only…

2023-03-28 00:31

Same thing happened with FaZe last year. Kept winning tournaments but wouldn't stay #1 longer than a week or two. New CS. Maybe it's time to revamp the ranking system as well. Makes no sense

2023-03-28 06:10

I've been saying for a long time that it makes no sense. Even BLAST Leaderboard is more objective. Each season they start over and count points for actual achievements, while HLTV's ranking is too subjective and is based on editor's opinion. These 1000 points make no sense at all. Why not 10 or a 1000000? Same thing.

2023-03-28 06:20

MY TOP 5 1. FAZE 2. NAVİ 3. G2 4. HEROİC 5. VİRTUS.PRO

2023-03-28 00:52

VP over C9? LMFAOOO

2023-03-28 07:08

unfortunately nafany and buster are taking the team back

2023-03-28 08:17

HLTV rankings is rigged when last year faze does lose some points in between despite winning four tournaments. That’s shows how biased they are towards G2

2023-03-28 05:11