Robert "KleX" Pinsler

Robert came in touch with eSports two years ago and has become more and more interested in the CSS scene since then, and also loves to play the game himself.

Last year he started working for the up and coming German eSports site eFever.de and helped to make it to what it is today. With some changes coming across in the last couple of weeks he quit this job after almost two years.

Nevertheless, Robert says that he will "give himself a go as a free agent from now on, so you better watch out!"

"This month we've one big winner even though this team hasn't put any effort into that: It's former fnatic finally achieving their aim to drop out of the Cadred Top10 by calling professional CS:S a day. Nevertheless, this month's ranking sees a more than adequate replacement with Danish OnlineKingdom pushing into it. Their fellow countrymen Imperial also showed some outstanding games in the ESEA Invite and therefore deserve to step up in the rankings. On the other hand Dignitas and Blight Gaming lose some places due to being rather inactive for a while."

Richard "Dr. Gonzo" Lewis

Richard comes from a journalistic background and has covered e-sports in print, on radio and television having worked for such organisations as GotFrag and CGS. He is the current content manager of Cadred where he contributes a weekly e-sports column. He was this year’s captain of Team UK in the ClanBase Nations Cup, although he is semi-retired from playing.

He now concentrates on writing and management. Over the years he has worked for Zboard, xciteuk, Infused and is currently based with 4kings.

"Denmark's where the action is it seems... The Imperial are making good headway into becoming considered a truly top team and I imagine, as we saw with Excello, Online Kingdom have achieved a few good results that should propel them into the top ten this month.

Along with The Imperial, Alternate Attax continue to impress although I'm giving up on the prospect of people getting on board with the idea that they are one of the form teams in Europe right now. You get used to being a lone voice in the wilderness, so we'll see what happens. However I think the predicted retunr of mTw to the top ten might be on hold after the whole dav1d "scandal".

With OnlineKingdom almost certainly coming into the mix, I imagine they will slot into fnatic's position in the top ten and leave everything pretty much where it was, ahead of the Easter LAN season."

Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner

Appearing on WorldsOldestHuman.com isn't all that Paul has to his name, he is also one of the most knowledgable and experienced men in eSports.

With a CV that won't fit into an average word processor, Paul is a director of QuadV, a broadcasting company he founded at the start of 2007.

Paul has been commentating for six years now, has appeared on major television networks in three continents, and is one of the most in-demand experts in gaming.

"With the usual lull in tournaments over the last month its difficult to rank anyone differently to last month, but there has been a lot of online action lately particularly with ESH, ESEA and EMS all hosting good tournaments featuring some of the Top teams.

Thus, I can’t really change anything from the last top ten as boring as that may sound. For me, Reason is still the team to beat, although we all know the record Roccat hold at lan events. We really need a definitive lan to sort these two out, perhaps once and for all.

Elsewhere, the battle of Britain is heating up between PWR and Dignitas and if I am honest, the Dignitas line up does excite me, although I think it was rough on Pez to be moved on again, that guy has no luck. How it turns out however is better judged at a lan tournament, so for now, they stay where they are in the Top Ten.

My only addition is a speculative one and that’s in the form of H2K, who have bags of potential to make it in to the Top Ten on merit, for now they are just a replacement for the old fnatic team who are no more."

Mike "Rickeh" McGhee

The latest addition to the Cadred news team and CS:S voting panel, Mike brings with him an in depth knowledge of the European scene and not just those usual suspects that everyone can claim to know about. Having started plying his trade as a news contributer, he now contributes features and will be known for rekindling the "A Trip Around Europe" series.

"Still no LANs to really speak of and there won't be a lot of change to the top ten as a result. I'd expect a bit of change at the top, but couldn't tell you which way it'd go. For me, nothing has changed and Reason are still the best in Europe, but with Roccat seeming to still not be as active as people want and VeryGames having a run of poor results as they switch their roster around, it will be tight at the top.

Attax are playing in every competition going at the moment and beating most teams they come up against so I'd expect them to jump up a spot or two. The UK teams don't seem to be either playing or practicing and Power Gaming and Dignitas have both had defeats at the hands of their European counterparts recently.

As always though it's LAN that matters and teams will be using February to get in shape for the real start of the season. That is when people can be realistically judged."

Jason "Jay" Atkins

Since starting his shoutcasting career at the now defunct Team Sportscast Network Jay was until recently a quadv shoutcaster.

Having covered a multitude of games his primary focus has been on CSS and CS 1.6. In the 2 years he has been covering CSS he has seen most if not all of Europe and North America's top teams duke it out in countless leagues and LAN's.

Jay has been around eSports for 5 years now, and broadcasting for 3. In his time he has seen leagues, teams and organisations both flourish and fail.

"With the loss of Fnatic, one of the most venerated teams in competitive play the Top 10 should have some new teams and faces. I have to say that I struggled to pick my top 10 due to the fact that as teams fold, go in-active the teams replacing them have yet to really prove themselves on a large stage.

That being said Roccat are still as good as ever and Reason Gaming for my money are still the most stable and consistent team in the EU. Hopefully the loss of the fnatic CS:S squad isn't indicative of what the future may hold."

You'll be able to catch more thoughts from our panel with Cadred's February Rankings in a month's time!