Heroic No. 1 in the world despite IEM Rio loss

Following the run to the Grand Finals at IEM Rio 2023, Danish team Heroic have been announced as the number 1 team in the world. The Danes replaced G2 as the best team in the world, who held the position since February 2022.

Even though the Danes have not won a tournament yet in 2023, Heroic have had strong runs in most of the tournaments they have taken part this year and boast of two second-place finishes at IEM Katowice 2023, where G2 got the best of them and the IEM Rio 2023, where Vitality beat them 2-0 in the finals. Apart from these two events, Heroic made it to the quarter-finals of the ESL Pro League Season 17, qualified for the BLAST Spring Finals after a strong showing at the BLAST Spring Groups and went 3-0 in the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Europe RMR B, to qualify to the Legends stage.

Vitality, who beat Heroic in the grand finals of IEM Rio 2023, to lift their first silverware for the year, also saw a rise in their rankings, and currently sit second in the table behind the Danes. Like Heroic, Vitality have also had a strong run to the first half of the 2023 year, making it to the quarter-finals of IEM Katowice 2023 and ESL Pro League Season 17, qualifying to the Legends Stage at the Paris Major 2023 and taking the crown at IEM Rio 2023. Vitality, who suffered from inconsistency for a large part of last year, finally seem to have found their footing and ahead of the final Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major, which will be held in Paris in May 2023, the international super-team look in prime form.

Heroic and Vitality's rise to the top places in the rankings means both G2 and FaZe have dropped out from the top three, with Natus Vincere in third place followed by G2 and then FaZe. Amongst the other big gainers are German team BIG, who rose eight spots to 11th, following a semi-final run at the IEM Rio 2023 while Poland's latest hopes 9INE have broken into the top-20 after their incredible RMR run which saw them qualify to the Legends Stage, after a stunning 3-0 campaign. Astralis' inconsistency and poor form, which saw them fail to make it to CS:GO's final Major, sees them drop four places to 21 while Imperial have risen three places to break into the top 30, sitting at 28.