Team ranking: March 2023
A plethora of changes plays out among the top 30 in this month's team ranking following the conclusion of ESL Pro League Season 17.
March was a relatively slow month in terms of the number of international events that took place, primarily playing host to the entirety of ESL Pro League Season 17. The Maltese event delivered from end-to-end, though, and culminated with FaZe finally winning the Intel Grand Slam by ending an eight-month title drought with a 3-1 victory over Cloud9 in the grand final.
A handful of CCT events also played out online throughout the month, ESL Challenger League Season 44 came to an end, and qualifiers for IEM Dallas, ESL Challenger Melbourne, and the BLAST Spring Final took place across various regions.
For new readers or those in need of a refresher, here's a summary of how the HLTV World Ranking by 1xBet works:
Our team ranking is based on teams' achievements over the past year (with severe decay in points throughout each month), recent form over the last two months, and performance in recent events in the last 3 months.
Each team is required to have a three-man core in order to retain their points. Due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, online results, which previously had a minimal effect, now carry more weight as they are also included in the 'Achievements' and 'Recent Events' sub-categories.
Below is the current top 30 table as of Monday, April 3 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.
POINTS
Gap narrows between top four
G2 secured a place atop the world ranking with their red-hot form to start the year, initially only eking ahead of world No. 2 HEROIC by seven points at the start of February. However, that gap widened by nearly 300 points following the European combine's IEM Katowice victory, and they held on to that significant lead for most of March as ESL Pro League Season 17 played out.
Now that the Maltese event has concluded and crowned FaZe as the champion, 300 points are not even enough to separate G2 from the fourth-highest-ranked team, let alone from second place. The gap between G2, FaZe, HEROIC, and Natus Vincere is incredibly slim, particularly between the top three, which means that there could be a significant shift in the rankings after the upcoming BLAST.tv Paris Major RMR events conclude. G2's slim lead could well slip away ahead of the Major and another one of the aforementioned lineups could head into the final CS:GO Major ranked as the best team in the world, with FaZe being the prime contender to do so after they won EPL S17 over Cloud9 and relieved the pressure of the Intel Grand Slam hanging over them.
Cloud9 return to top five for first time since November
Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov's troops slipped outside of the top five in the world rankings after a dismal end to 2022, exiting the IEM Rio Major in 5-8th place despite getting an extremely favorable playoffs bracket draw. Not attending both the BLAST Fall and World Final after that left Cloud9 with no events to play in for the remainder of 2022, and other teams leapfrogged above them in the world rankings.
The Russian team's points only dwindled further at the start of 2023 as they made a roster change, swapping Timofey "interz" Yakushin for Timur "buster" Tulepov, and a poor showing at IEM Katowice (with losses to Natus Vincere and IHC) resulted in them being unable to immediately recover from their points deficit.
Cloud9 have been on a recovery run since that low period, however, winning 16 of their last 18 matches. They went flawless in their ESL Pro League Season 17 group, besting Evil Geniuses, G2, and Outsiders, and carried that performance through to the playoffs by taking down MOUZ and ENCE before ultimately being bested by FaZe in the grand final. Their overall level and teamplay has looked more in line with what one would expect from Cloud9, and the superlative performances of Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov and Sergey "Ax1Le" Rykhtorov from last year have carried through into 2023.
All in all, the team looks to be on course to fight for titles again this year, and aren't making the same mistake as in 2022 — this time, they are fighting for spots at BLAST events, and have already secured a spot at the Spring Final in Washington, D.C. in June. However, all their immediate attention will be on the Paris Major Europe RMR, where they will need to surpass a stacked field of competitors — including the likes of G2, HEROIC, Vitality, ENCE, and Astralis — to secure one of the 11 spots at the Major that are on offer.
paiN and FORZE fight into top 20
Two underdog teams surprised while in Malta, making playoff runs and defeating teams ranked well above them in the world rankings. paiN successfully made it past Rooster, OG, and Grayhound to reach the playoffs, where they shocked Liquid with a one-sided, 2-0 defeat. The Brazilian team nearly surpassed MOUZ in their subsequent match as well, winning the first map of the series, but squandered a 13-10 lead on Inferno and ultimately lost the series 1-2 to be eliminated in 9-12th place.
Nonetheless, Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt's side showcased strong form with more European practice under their belt and continued to give Liquid trouble upon returning home for the BLAST Spring Final Americas Showdown, defeating Nick "nitr0" Cannella's troops for a second time by edging out a 2-1 victory. The team didn't manage to qualify for the Spring Final, faltering to Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo's Imperial in the grand final, but can take solace in reaching their highest spot in the world rankings at No. 15 heading into the upcoming BLAST Paris Major Americas RMR.
FORZE were equally as impressive while in Malta, topping their group with wins over Natus Vincere, Spirit, and ENCE. Andrey "Jerry" Mekhryakov's side also pushed FaZe to the limits in the playoffs, but were unable to overcome star-level performances from Robin "ropz" Kool and Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken, narrowly conceding a 1-2 loss on the map to be eliminated in 5-8th place.
The Russian team have since continued adding wins to their tally, making it to the grand final of BetBoom Playlist Urbanistic 2023, and are now ranked at No. 16 — the highest rank FORZE has achieved since September 2021.
NIP match all-time low of rank No. 21
The once-dominant Swedish organization has struggled immensely in the past year, but especially so in recent months: they exited the main stage of IEM Katowice in 13-16 place, failed to make the playoffs of ESL Pro League Season 17 following losses to FaZe, Grayhound, and 00NATION, and didn't manage to qualify for either IEM Dallas or the BLAST Spring Final.
Their performance struggles during matches have been evident, particularly that of Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke, but also in their supposed star addition of Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov — the Ukrainian AWPer has mustered a meager 1.05 rating thus far in 2023, a far cry from the superstar numbers he was putting up as a part of NAVI Junior last year (1.27 rating over 72 maps).
The above, combined with Hampus "hampus" Poser stepping back from the lineup in January due to health reasons, has resulted in Ninjas in Pyjamas plummeting down the world rankings to a tied-all-time low of No. 21. The last time the Swedish organization were ranked that low was in June 2017, with that dip primarily coming as a result of the removal of long-time member Adam "friberg" Friberg and addition of Fredrik "REZ" Sterner. They re-entered the top 15 just two weeks later.
Abay 'HObbit' Khassenov
Freddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson
Dion 'FASHR' Derksen
Nico 'nicoodoz' Tamjidi
William 'mezii' Merriman
Guy 'NertZ' Iluz
Pavle 'Maden' Bošković
Paweł 'dycha' Dycha
Álvaro 'SunPayus' García
Eetu 'sAw' Saha
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
Justin 'jks' Savage
Jan 'Swani' Müller
Simon 'Sico' Williams
Andrew 'kaze' Khong
Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou
Håkon 'hallzerk' Fjærli
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
Timofey 'interz' Yakushin
Adam 'NEOFRAG' Zouhar
Mohammad 'BOROS' Malhas
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Ádám 'torzsi' Torzsás
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