Not all champions are created equal. You need to be really good to even get to a CS:GO Major, let alone win one, but there’s still a fine line between good teams that happened to win a Major and the best of the best.
There have been 19 CS:GO Majors and 15 different champions. Ranking all these teams that accomplished the greatest feat in CS:GO esports was as entertaining as it was painstakingly difficult. Many arguments and rearrangements later, we have it: the ranking of every CS:GO Major champion, from worst to best.
15) Jame, qikert, FL1T, n0rb3r7, fame (Outsiders)
The battle for last place was so fierce, we rearranged the bottom three multiple times before arriving at the conclusion that Outsiders is the worst-ever CS:GO Major champion. Four of the five members of this squad have never been in HLTV’s Top 20. This isn’t the end of the world by itself, but IEM Rio 2022 is the only trophy this lineup has ever won, and the only one three of the five members have won in their entire career. Outsiders becoming Major champions is the definition of lightning in a bottle, and for that, they sit at the bottom of our list.
Photo by Michal Konko via ESL Gaming
14) JW, flusha, pronax, znajder, Devilwalk (fnatic)
It pains us to have three legends of the game so far down, but the fact of the matter is that the Fnatic that won DreamHack Winter 2013 wasn’t a very good team. This is the only lineup besides Outsiders whose only title came at a Major. While undeniably a cool feat, it isn’t very convincing for a ranking like ours. The separating factor that kept fnatic from being dead last is individual skill, of which JW and flusha had plenty, even back then.
13) Skadoodle, RUSH, autimatic, tarik, Stewie2K (Cloud9)
Love them or hate them, Cloud9 had the most memorable CS:GO Major win ever, and no one can take that away from the Americans. Memorable is not what we’re ranking, though, and a great champion Cloud9 was not. This roster fell apart immediately after winning ELEAGUE Major 2018, and none of the players found much success either before or after that magical week in Boston. Tarik’s dubious record of being the only CS:GO Major MVP to never appear in HLTV’s Top 20 doesn’t help C9’s cause, either.
12) Zeus, AdreN, HObbit, Dosia, mou (Gambit)
Though usually crammed together with the flukey Major champions, we’re of the opinion that this Gambit lineup is the first truly great one to appear in our countdown. Zeus played in three Major finals and won many trophies with NAVI, AdreN played in one more Major final and also won some trophies after Gambit, Dosia was one of the best players in the early CS:GO days, and HObbit enjoyed an amazing career resurgence in his second stint with Gambit. The only factor stopping the lineup that won PGL Major Krakow from being higher on our list is Zeus’ love for NAVI, which prematurely cut Gambit’s solid run with three total titles.
Photo via DreamHack
11) Happy, NBK, kioShiMa, shox, SmithZz (LDLC)
If Gambit didn’t convince you we’re firmly in greatness territory, the DreamHack Winter 2014 champions should. The French scene was as strong as it was chaotic in the first few years of CS:GO. For what it’s worth, all the shuffling of star power won France two Majors. Both winning lineups include the core of Happy, NBK, and kioShiMa, and both had very similar success, but one achieved just a little bit more to earn a spot in our top 10.
Happy, NBK, kioShiMa, shox, and SmithZz won six tournaments in 10 months of playing together. Each player has made at least one HLTV Top 20, each has won at least 12 titles in their career. This is an immensely successful, star-studded lineup, and it’s not even in the top 10 of CS:GO champions. That’s the kind of competition we’re having here.
10) Happy, NBK, kioShiMa, kennyS, apEX (Envy)
We’re already familiar with the majority of the lineup that went on to win DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca. The new faces are kennyS, who is top five all-time in MVP awards, and apEX, who accumulated over 20 trophies during his career—not exactly a downgrade from shox and SmithZz.
This new lineup reached a Major final in its second tournament together—ESL One Cologne 2015, which makes them the first entry on our list that appeared in multiple CS:GO Major finals. Whether that’s a good thing is up to the reader. While that additional final appearance helped Envy to jump above LDLC, it also makes the Frenchmen the worst CS:GO Major multi-finalists, by a long shot.
9) ZywOo, apEX, dupreeh, Magisk, Spinx (Vitality)
ZywOo caught the last train out of “Best player to never win a CS:GO Major” station by winning the last-ever such event. ZywOo’s individual greatness is reason enough to place Vitality in our top 10, but this is far from a hard carry. Magisk, dupreeh, and apEX had eight Major titles between them before ever playing a round with ZywOo. Spinx lacked that veteran pedigree before joining forces with the stars, but it was his arrival that propelled Vitality to three top-tier titles, culminating with a Major win in ZywOo and apEX’s home country at the BLAST Paris Major.
Photo via BLAST
8) Twistzz, ropz, karrigan, rain, broky (FaZe)
Karrigan is a magnet for great lineups, yet it is this one that finally got the legendary Danish IGL the Major title that had eluded him for nearly a decade. FaZe won the first three tournaments they participated in after the final piece of the puzzle, ropz, joined at the start of 2022. One of these three victories was at PGL Major Antwerp. A fourth trophy further down the line completed FaZe’s Intel Grand Slam and cemented this lineup’s legacy as one of the best to ever do it.
7) Xyp9x, dupreeh, device, gla1ve, Kjaerbye (Astralis)
The Kjaerbye era Astralis is often glossed over due to Astralis’ future greatness, but we’ll give it all the shine it deserves right here. Though we call it the Kjaerbye era, it is actually gla1ve who joined last and it was that roster move that changed the team’s fortunes. This Astralis lineup finished top four in the first 10 events it attended, winning three of them. Among these wins was what was at the time the greatest CS:GO Major final ever at ELEAGUE Major 2017.
Even the myth that Astralis fell off toward the end of this roster’s run isn’t entirely true. They slowed down a bit, sure, but if they didn’t, we’d be talking about them much later on this list. Overall, this lineup achieved 14 top-four placements in 19 tournaments, a remarkable display of consistency that gives Astralis a mini-title in our ranking—the title of best CS:GO Major champion that has never played in another Major final.
6) Snax, byali, pashaBiceps, NEO, TaZ (Virtus.pro)
We all love the Virtus Plow, and their longevity alone almost got them into the top five. This lineup played together for over four years, won a dozen trophies and was always capable of knocking the favorites out of any event. They also narrowly missed out on becoming two-time champions in a crushingly close encounter with Astralis at ELEAGUE 2017. We’re beginning to run out of slots, and there are better, more successful lineups that won a Major, so we couldn’t push VP any higher, but No. 6 is more than respectable for the EMS Katowice 2014 champions.
Photo via HLTV
5) Perfecto, s1mple, electronic, Boombl4, b1t (NAVI)
Take what Astralis did after gla1ve joined, amp it up to 11, and you’ll get this NAVI lineup. The CIS giants weren’t just finishing in the top four of events, they were winning them. NAVI won six times and was runner-up once in its first seven tournaments with this roster. Thankfully, that second place did not come at PGL Major Stockholm, because s1mple would have probably believed he was cursed by a cosmic entity at this point.
Similarly to ZywOo, s1mple by himself could drag any lineup to success, but neither superstar had enjoyed so much winning with any other lineup. NAVI completed the Intel Grand Slam and was one win away at PGL Antwerp from becoming back-to-back Major champions. That was their last tournament together. Had they won it, they would have more than likely broken into the top three. As it is, NAVI has to settle for top five.
4) FalleN, coldzera, fer, TACO, fnx (Luminosity/SK)
Luminosity exploded onto the scene in 2016, won its first-ever title at the MLG Columbus Major, then followed it with two more trophies before switching to SK days before ESL One Cologne 2016, where they became only the second back-to-back Major winner in CS:GO history. This core’s winning formula was not lost with fnx’s benching and subsequent departure, but we don’t give bonus points for other rosters’ accomplishments, even if only one player was changed, so right outside the top three of CS:GO Major champions is where the Brazilians stand in our book.
3) GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, Xizt, friberg, Fifflaren (Ninjas in Pyjamas)
It’s difficult to explain to someone who didn’t follow the scene at the time just how dominant Ninjas in Pyjamas were in the first 12 months of CS:GO. This team was averaging more than a title per month from September 2012 to September 2013, but there was one problem—there weren’t any Majors in that timeframe. The first ever Major was played in November 2013, where NiP were upset by the second-worst CS:GO Major champion ever. Then they lost in the final again at EMS Katowice. Had NiP not won ESL One Cologne 2014, they would have been on top of another ranking—the best team to never win a CS:GO Major. We’d bet they’re much happier to be the mere third-greatest team to win one instead.
Photo via HLTV
2) JW, flusha, pronax, olofmeister, KRIMZ (fnatic)
It’s funny how changing two players can take you from the second-worst to the second-best CS:GO Major champion. Snatching LGB stars KRIMZ and olofmeister was the best thing fnatic ever did, as this lineup accumulated a dozen trophies over its 18-month run and took over from NiP as the premier CS:GO team. The crowning jewels in this second Swedish dynasty’s crown were the successive Majors they won—ESL One Katowice and ESL One Cologne 2015.
The latter would be this lineup’s final title before swapping pronax for dennis and winning five events in five attempts to begin their new era. We don’t need those additional titles to rank fnatic second, it will break our own rules, but it’s always fun to reminisce about this period in CS:GO history, so there you go.
Image via ESL
1) Xyp9x, dupreeh, device, gla1ve, Magisk (Astralis)
We struggled mightily with most placements, but one thing we knew from the start was who would be No. 1. Astralis with Magisk is the greatest team to ever touch CS:GO, period. They won a staggering 20 trophies together, the most for any single lineup. Part of this unmatched run were not one, not two, but three Major titles in a row—FACEIT London, IEM Katowice, and Starladder Berlin. Point made, case closed—Astralis is the best team to ever win a CS:GO Major.
Photo by Igor Bezborodov via Starladder
Any sort of list is destined to make someone unhappy, but that’s the last feeling we want to leave you with. If your favorite team seems like it was hard done by yours truly, we offer the best highlights from every CS:GO Major as a means of truce.
About the author
Kiril Stoilov
Dot Esports general gaming writer. Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. Though a single player gamer at heart, he can be seen noobing around CS:GO lobbies.
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