With the IEM Sydney closing out with a satisfactory ending, HLTV has updated their ranking system in April. The month witnessed many big events with countless twists and turns to the ranking. Na`vi started the month with StarSeries i-League Season 7 trophy in a convincing fashion after defeating fnatic 3-0 in a best of five. This broke a deadlock for the team after a long chain of unsuccessful finishes in tournaments.
Natus Vincere initiated April with a significant victory in the StarSeries i-League Season 7 Shanghai. The CIS powerhouse dominated fnatic in a best of five without dropping a single map. This showed a promising future for the big name, with their form looking solid as a team, more than a mere show of Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev as people often complained.
No longer after that, only a week later, FaZe marked their comeback with their dominance over Liquid in the grandfinal of BLAST Pro Series Miami, securing their second event title of 2019 as well as their first at a Big Event. To close out April, Liquid hoisted the IEM Sydney trophy by defying the finalist curse, winning against the Swedish fnatic in a nail-biting series of 5 maps
The ranking of April in HLTV is as follow:
Liquid closed the gap with Astralis
In a race against the best team in the world right now, Astralis, the North America’s side has much to do before they can dethrone the supreme reign of the Danes on LAN. However, the situation looked a bit optimistic for team Liquid, as they have narrowed down the overly big difference in ranking point to just 186 points, much more achievable.
Fnatic got decent results as they claimed back their #6
In the past month, the Swedish squad has shown promising form, reaching two grand finals at Big events. It was there at StarSeries i-League CS:GO Season 7 and IEM Sydney that the Swedes came out strong. Richard "Xizt" Landström and Co. put up great fights against teams like NiP, North and NRG to book their place in the grand final. Though unable to finish first in either of the events, fnatic looked solid as a team, more than just a shadow of their legendary former self. It remains to been seen if the team can keep up their good form or it was all just a fluke in the upcoming DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019.
NRG back on track in the top 10 teams
The North America team NRG returned to the table of tier1 teams after reaching playoffs at both StarSeries i-League Season 7 and IEM Sydney. Strangely enough, in both tournaments, the North American roster was bested by fnatic, forming a potential rivalry between the two names.
In addition to solid ranking at two Big events, major MVP Tarik “tarik” Celik and his new fellows qualified for the ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, which is staged in Montpellier, France by topping Group A in the Americas division.
NRG’s comeback as top teams shows how good potential they have to compete in big stages. Ever since the addition of tarik, NRG have showed significant consistency they really needed when it matters most. Expectations for the team to go far is high.
mousesports in the top competitors again.
The European mix fell apart after the departure of oskar, STYKO and suNny earlier this year. The roster went inactive for around 2 months until they finally found new members. During this time, the ranking of this team dropped drastically with 3 cores missing. Later, with the addition of frozen, karrigan and woxic, mousesports came back looking strong since some online qualification matches in March. In April, the team put up a good show of performance in ESL pro league to qualify for the final. Also, Estonia “ropz” Robin Kool and Co. put up a good fight against top contestants in IEM Sydney, only to be halted by the Brazilian side MIBR.
Up and coming talents coupled with experienced leadership in hand, the European roster looks set to advance with lots of potential for improvement and development. Once they have accumulated enough confidence and strategic power, the European name will very well be on the list of considerable rivals.