I apologize for the delay in bringing the top 10 Euro back to your screens, but it’s been a turbulent summer. Three huge tournaments have taken place within the last thirty days the CGS World Finals, The Experience and i34, yet this serves to make rankings teams harder not easier. 1 Birmingham Salvo 379 points 2 Magnitude 298 points 3 Reason Gaming 6 266 points 4 Epsilon 252 points 5 emuLate! 249 points 6 London Mint 3 210 points 7 Four Kings 107 points 8= mTw 98 points 8= Logitech.fi 4 98 points 10 MGC 54 points

Where were London Mint and Birmingham Salvo at The Experience (In Los Angeles, obviously!), where were Epsilon, Magnitude and Logitech at i34 and finally where was almost every other team at the CGS World Finals. The answer is that no team was at all three events, making direct cross comparison based on results impossible. This has meant that sticking with the system of gathering votes was once again the weapon of choice for this month’s rankings.

The voting system is quite simple; I approached someone from the Counter-Strike: Source scene, be it a top player from one of the teams seen above or a journalist like myself, I then asked each of these people to name their top ten teams, in order. Teams are awarded 10 points for first place, right down, 9 points for second place all the way down to a single point for tenth.

Previous votes have suffered due to their sample size, this time we’ve pulled out all the stops and have gotten 38 separate votes on the top 10. Enjoy.

The Teams

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Birmingham Salvo

Only one crazy, crazy person failed to place Salvo at the top of their votes (he shall remain unnamed for his own protection), but the rest were absolutely unanimous. They came into i34 on the back of a CGS World Championship with questions being asked about their motivation and ability to adapt to the MR15 format. They answered those questions emphatically in the grand final, coming from the lower bracket to absolutely destroy Reason Gaming over two maps.

They are simply a class above the rest right now, over five weeks solid LAN practice in the US for CGS has turned this team into what fnatic where 12 months ago, the unbeatable team at the top.

Magnitude

Despite having been around for quite some time now due to the old nature of the previous rankings Magnitude are one of many to earn that flashing new gif. Despite still failing to win any prestigious event Magnitude were voted well above Epsilon, their conquerors in the TeX Grand Final. TeX saw this team find its feet and realize some of the potential that was dying to be unleashed. A surprise no-show at i34 leaves the question of what now for this team. They need to win an event in the next three months otherwise further questions will be asked.

For now though, they are the fully deserved number two.

Reason Gaming

Second place at i34 did much to restore confidence in this team after a poor showing at TeX. They were the only team to take a map off Salvo throughout the whole tournament, proving further than de_nuke is to this team as train was to fnatic back in their hay day. Outclassed in the final took a bit of sheen off their placing, but for a team just getting over STR’s departure second was a brilliant result.

Away from the final standings this team has gone on to develop an incredibly interesting rivalry with emulate; while not quite comparing to the Mint – Toxic rivalry a matchup between these two serves to offer a perfect viewing spectacle in CSS, I can only hope for more between them.

Epsilon

Seeing the winners of one of the biggest LAN’s of the year (TeX) at fourth is interesting, many voters put them second, yet equally many voters put them in the bottom five of the draw. I think this shows much about the wildly varying opinions on the use of the crouch bug, many team see it as part of the game while other see it as a cheap trick.

I don’t think fourth is enough credit for this team, I’d have loved to see them at i34 but I’ve already heard a rumour that they’ll be at i35 (forgoing the French MaxLAN), where we can hope to see them against the teams that couldn’t make it to TeX.

emuLate!

After a brief period of inactivity over TeX i34 saw this team back with a vengeance as they battled hard for a third place finish, falling at the hands of Reason and Salvo. This team is still one of the most dangerous teams in Europe on LAN and with their crown of the number one French team off their heads for now; they’ll be striving to get that back harder than ever.

I think this new roster is the best this team has had to date, they’ll give anyone on this list a close game, including Salvo.

London Mint

I know that Mint won’t be happy with this ranking, and if I was them neither would I. I34 was obviously still fresh in the minds of the voters as they saw Mint’s failure to reach top three as a poor result, but it’s hard to see what went wrong.

What will worry Mint far more than i34 is the gap still heavily apparent between themselves and their CGS rivals, Salvo. I fail to see how they can bridge the gap in the short term, longer term something amazing needs to happen.

Four Kings

After a brilliant third place performance at TeX , Four Kings came into i34 as huge favourites for a top three finish. They ended up just squeezing into the top eight going out in a shock loss to k1ck eSports. I don’t think too much can be read into from this result as they were playing on the Packard Bell stand in a noisy environment.

This team can only get better from here on in; we haven’t seen a Swedish team on top for a long, long time. In a few months 4K could change that.

mTw

After defeating emuLate to win the second ELS Major Series people took notice of mTw, this team seems to be a team on the up.

Yet whilst gathering votes I got a feeling for a great sense of animosity behind this team. They’re seen as onliners by many, and no, that doesn’t mean they cheat. An awful performance at the EPS XII LAN finals and a failure to attend any of the Summer’s major LAN’s will only reinforce that. To be seriously considered among the best in Europe we’ll need to see this team attending a major LAN and performing.

Logitech.fi

Despite a fourth place finish at The eXperience Logitech would go on to make a roster change immediately afterwards, dropping founding member TOPSIIKRT for the young, but experienced Odiouz.

This denied us a chance to see them in action at i34 as the roster change combined with last minute travel arrangements spelt a no-go for the Finns. Little has been seen of Logitech since then, and with nothing to judge them off they have slipped down heavily in the rankings.

 

 

MGC

Time and time again the Russians come into a tournament underrated and do well. We saw it two Eurocups ago and we saw it again at TeX. MGC really are the dark horse of Counter-Strike: Source.

Where do they go from here? Much depends on the state of the Gameplay league, in addition to the level of funding they can get to get to and from Europe for major LAN’s. I know I’d like to see them at the next I-series.

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Outsiders

Team Alternate - 38
k1ck eSports - 19
Stockholm Magnetik - 12