In October 2020 we released an update to unify the ESL World Ranking during the online era of Counter Strike. This was aimed to reevaluate and make changes to the mechanics of how all competitions are classified and therefore how much they contribute to a team’s standing within the ESL WR.
This ranking update corrects an error that appeared with the introduction of the new “Covid-19 online” ranking.
What was the error?
The error impacted tournaments which had more than one region and it affected only tournament size (XS - S - M - L - XL). Tournament size is one of the factors determining how many points a tournament gives (others being the quality of the teams present, online / LAN, etc.).
This resulted in the size evaluation of those tournaments being too low in some cases. This occurred because the lowest rank of a team in the previous World Ranking that were considered relevant for the evaluation was based on the value of the largest included region (EU = 16) instead of the combination of regions (EU+CIS = 24). So in these tournaments, whenever teams ranked 17-24 in those regions took part, they were not adding to the size value of the tournament, only 1-16 did.
The size rating of the four tournaments below was retrospectively upgraded, meaning that the teams in those tournaments should have received more ranking points. Additional tournaments were also added, but due to the points decay, they are valued at 0% today and thus have no direct impact on today’s update.
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 3: XS→ S
- LOOT.BET/CS Season 6: XS → S
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 8: XS → S
- DreamHack Masters Winter 2020: Europe: M → L
Due to the change of the mechanics, below 12 tournaments have been added into today’s update. They were previously not included and while some of these tournaments have had some points decay, they still factor in on today’s update.
- Eden Arena: Malta Vibes - Week 1
- Nine to Five #2
- Eden Arena: Malta Vibes - Week 8
- Nine to Five #3
- Eden Arena: Malta Vibes - Week 9
- Eden Arena: Malta Vibes - Week 10
- LOOT.BET/CS Season 7
- Nine to Five #4
- Nine to Five #5
- LOOT.BET/CS Season 8
- Nine to Five #6
- DreamHack Open November 2020
Six tournaments were also added (they have decayed to 0% influence already, but the points won in those tournaments influenced the valuation of subsequent tournaments in the ranking).
- Flashpoint Season 1
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 2
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 4
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 5
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 6
- #HomeSweetHome: Week 7
We understand that the recent error could have had some impact on recent tournaments. This is unfortunately something we are unable to retroactively correct however going forward we can confirm that the ranking is fixed and 100% correct.
What was the outcome relative to teams?
Rank changes (Top30)
Old Top30
- Team: old rank → new rank (points increase)
- Vitaliy: 1 → 3 (+0)
- Astralis: 2 → 1 (+36)
- Heroic: 3 → 2 (+10)
- 4-8 unchanged ranks (between +0 and +24)
- G2: 9 → 10 (+0)
- OG: 10 → 12 (+0)
- Chaos: 11 → 14 (+0)
- Virtus.pro: 12 → 11 (+29)
- EG: 13 → 16 (+0)
- FaZe: 14 → 15 (+12)
- NiP: 15 → 17 (+0)
- fnatic: 16 → 18 (+0)
- Spirit: 17 → 13 (+54)
- Liquid: 18 → 19 (+0)
- C9: 19 → 20 (+0)
- Team One: 20 → 23 (+0)
- Godsent: 21 → 21 (+40)
- Renegades: 22 → 26 (+0)
- Gambit: 23 → 9 (+138)
- Nemiga: 24 → 24 (+17)
- Triumph: 25 → 27 (+0)
- Sprout: 26 → 30 (+0)
- MAD Lions: 27 → 25 (+25)
- ORDER: 28 → 32 (+0)
- Rebirth: 29 → 40 (+0)
- MIBR: 30 → 34 (+4)
New in Top30:
- forZe: 31→22 (+59)
- ESPADA: 40→28 (+35)
- North: 37→29 (+27)
All of the above have ultimately resulted in an update to the ESL World Ranking, which is now reflected on the website: https://pro.eslgaming.com/worldranking/csgo/rankings/