2019 has ended, and everyone is summing up the results, and we will not be left out. Here is our personal top among the CS: GO teams of 2019. It should be noted that the top list will be quite subjective because everyone has his own preferences for one team or another.
These teams win such a big sum of cash that an ordinary person will never make that kind of money for his whole life, except if he is lucky during play in an online casino.
Tenth place – ForZe
Just recently, this team has become a discovery. For more than a year the composition of this team has been holding without reshuffles, which is very unusual for the post-soviet region. Despite the failures at the beginning of the year, they did not change the team composition and haven’t disbanded it. Team ForZe found sponsors from betting and online casino companies, so now we will see this team much more often on different CSGO tournaments.
And at the end of the year, they made their move. Taking second place at BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019. Winning DreamHack Open Winter 2019 and took fifth place at Epicenter 2019.
Ninth place – Vitality
Vitality had great performance on the Epicenter 2019. This team composition is a little less than a year old, which is also a significant result compared to others. At one point, they were even considered one of the best teams in the world, on par with Astralis. They have won the ECS Season 7 Finals and cs_summit 4, Vitality also became bronze medalists of ESL One Cologne 2019.
The secret of their success and a good game is that they have a cool combination of veterans of the scene and newcomers with hot blood. For example, RpK (30 years!), Shox (27 years), apEx (27 years) have had performances in professional Counter-Strike for more than ten years, only a few in this niche can boast of such results, and this is simply a colossal experience and understanding of the game. And the young player ZywOo, probably the best player of 2019. That’s how cool this team combo is.
Eighth place – NaVi
Sad of course, but this is their maximum at the moment. At the beginning of the year, everything was fine, they even won the StarSeries i-League Season 7 and took third place at ESL One Cologne 2019. However, then Edward left the team, they took Boombl4 instead, which was an equivalent substitute for the skill, but not for teamwork. In the wake of Edward, Zeus (and their trainer Kane) suddenly announced his retirement, which was a strong blow to the fighting strength of the team as a whole.
Left without a clear leader in the game, NaVi began to lose ground, because one individual performance is not enough in professional games. NaVi is at the bottom of the rating among professionals, without a clue what will happen to them next.
Seventh place – NiP
Despite the average results: third places at the BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019, BLAST Pro Series Madrid 2019 and BLAST Pro Series Global Final 2019. The Swedes still hold the bar of a professional team. F0rest leaves no hope of returning to the top of the world ranking. And does everything possible to achieve this result. He is solely responsible for tactical decisions, competent calls, and good clutch moments. But team play in NiP is still at a poor level.
Sixth place – Fnatic
Another Swedish team in our top. And they look a little more confident than the previous one. Whole year they evenly went to their pedestals, there was no strong drawdown on any point. Shooting, tactics, everything was pretty good. But still, they lacked something for the final first place.
Second place at ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals and StarSeries i-League Season 8, StarSeries i-League Season 7 and IEM Sydney 2019 and third at ECS Season 8 Finals make us respect this team anyway.
But apparently, at the end of the year, they were also tired. Probably that’s why they refused to participate in Epicenter 2019. In fact, you can understand them, the main thing in this matter is not to burn out, and not to lose motivation. It’s better to skip a couple of tournaments in order to perform well in next, bigger events.
Fifth Place – 100Thieves (ex-Renegades)
This is not a popular team among fans of CSGO competitive tournaments, but the fact is that this is the only team in the Australian region that can perform at the global level. It is rare to find immigrants from Australia because frankly speaking, the region is weak in e-sports. But these guys managed not only to show that they are ready to play on equal terms with top teams but even to win them.
Third place at StarLadder Major Berlin 2019 and StarSeries i-League Season 7, second place at IEM Beijing 2019, a pretty impressive result for this team.
Separately, it should be mentioned the only Norwegian player of this team – Jkaem. He is most experienced and the captain of team. On the professional stage, this team played for five years and took part in six majors. In total, 100Thieves played in forty-two LAN tournaments, but it is pretty funny that they did not win a single one.
We will be watching them in 2020, see if they can reach the top, and whether Jkaem will bring the first win in one of the LAN tournaments.
Fourth place – Evil Geniuses
As for the Evil Geniuses they play cool, both individually and collectively, no doubt about it. At some point, they were considered even the best team in the world. But for some reason they do not always look confident.
First place: ESL One New York 2019, StarSeries i-League Season 8. Third place: ECS Season 8 Finals, EPICENTER 2019.
Third place – Team Liquid
TL have pretty good overall results, but they really need to make few changes in team. Nitr0 does not cope with the tasks assigned to him, shoots poorly, and because of this, the team falls slowly down. Even in the summer season, when they were considered as the best team, Nitr0 performed very poorly.
However, they were able to win such trophies as: a bunch of first places: ESL Pro League Season, 10 Americas IEM Chicago 2019, ESL One Cologne 2019, BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles 2019, ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019. And second places at such tournaments as: cs_summit 4, ECS Season 8 Finals, BLAST Pro Series Global Final 2019.
Second place – Mousesports
The European team of the German organization.
This is really the most important opening of the 2019 CS: GO scene, throughout the year they overclocked their game tactics and in the end they took several major tournaments at once. They do not have a secret of success, it’s just that everyone in the team is very motivated to win, and when something does not work out, they are not upset, but on the contrary, start to train even more.
By the way, their phenomenal comeback from 14: 8 to 14:16 against Astralis in the semi-finals of ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals will go down in history.
Achievements of 2019: first place at CS: GO Asia Championships 2019, ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, cs_summit 5 and second place at EPICENTER 2019. Besides, a large amount in the team treasury was made by sponsors from online casinos and e-sports betting platforms.
First place – Astralis
For the second year, they unconditionally occupy the first line among the best teams in the world. Yes, at the beginning of the year they began to lose ground, but by the middle of the season, they retrieved glory of the previous year. The team composition has not changed for the second year, which is a very, very good effect on the moral component and collective actions. They are like a big friendly family already. Australia is just some kind of machine in terms of the game, and to get around them, you need to play very perfectly.
Achievements of 2019: BLAST Pro Series Global Final 2019, ECS Season 8 Finals, IEM Beijing 2019, StarLadder Major Berlin 2019, BLAST Pro Series Paulo 2019, ESL Pro League Season 9 Europe – all these events have delivered gold for team Astralis.
Astralis in CS: GO is like OG in Dota2, the same geniuses in terms of the game. And it seems like everyone is saying that now someone will come and overthrow them, but for the second year in a row, no one can take the first place from Astralis. According to statistics, on online casino platforms 60% of bets by the players made on e-sports events, were exactly when the Astralis team participated in tournaments.