G2 are invincible.
The VALORANT esports scene continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Even though all competitions are online, we can watch many of the most diverse tournaments around the world. It's time to draw up another ranking of the strongest teams in Europe.
Original text provided by Evgeny Kondratyev.
We invited an expert to weigh in, Igor "Helix" Meshcheryakov, a Russian commentator with VALORANT and Overwatch commenting experience.
1. G2 Esports
The most predictable position. Since the beginning of July, the "samurai" have lost only two matches. Still, we can put a "star" to both defeats: Team Liquid outplayed G2 in a show match, the competitive value of which is questionable, if only because on one map all participants played Jett; and the victory of FunPlus Phoenix in August was notorious for the fact that davidp found out about the death of his father right during the match and had to leave it. In a full-fledged competitive environment, G2 could give up a map, but not a match. For this reason, they are the undisputed leader in the European ranking.
Something remains the same. So far, they are absolute champions, but competitors are getting closer to them with each major tournament.
2. FunPlus Phoenix
Kirill "ANGE1" Karasev's superteam gained momentum. Yes, G2 are too tough for this roster, but the rest of the teams were able to appreciate FPX's power. Also, they have already earned over $20,000 in prize money.
As expected, the roster of the best players from the Party Parrots and Fabriken teams turned out to be a "bomb." Of all the teams in Europe, the guys impose the closest game to G2. Even though FPX lost 2nd place in LVL Clash 2 to the Bonk team, they remain the main threat to the "samurai."
3. Bonk
A Swedish squad without an organization, which manages to show quite high results. In September, Bonk was joined by draken, a well-known ex-CS:GO player, and this should add to the gaming power. Unfortunately, the team cannot boast of a stable line-up.
Eternal second place. A team makes its way to the top every time there are open qualifiers at a major event. The guys definitely deserve their place at the top, and they have proved more than once that they deserve to be called the Tier-1 VALORANT team, even though there is still no organization behind them.
4. Team Liquid
The British four, together with ScreaM, continue to show good results in European tournaments, but we still want something more from such a roster. Perhaps a victory over G2 Esports in a show match will give them a moral boost, and we will see liquid ones in the first positions. So far, we cannot include them in the top three strongest teams in Europe.
What can I say, Team Liquid doesn't perform very well in the competition against the Tier-1 teams starting with the Mandatory.gg Cup, and if after Mandatory they could still be placed in the top 2-3, now with the appearance of the new ANGE1 team and the rise of Bonk, they aren't seemed to be much better than the infamous Ninjas in Pyjamas.
5. Ninjas in Pyjamas
"Ninjas" continues to be heard. Perhaps the big name of the organization helps them, but the team has firmly established itself in 3-4 places of major tournaments, not always showing a spectacular game. Perhaps the most revealing is their performance at the BLAST Twitch Invitational, where NiP took the unconditional fourth place out of four extremely strong teams (G2, FPX and Team Liquid).
Expected fifth place. It may seem to some that NiP doesn't deserve it either because of the bad results over a rather long period, but here the argument remains the same: the guys only suffer losses in tournaments from the teams that are higher in this top.
6. Giants Gaming
The Spanish team has yet to take a big step forward, but they can be safely called the strongest team in the country.
It is rather difficult to determine the top of the Tier-2 teams. Nevertheless, of all these teams, the Giants probably have the greatest experience of interacting with representatives of the top five. The guys were able to bring such teams as G2, NiP and FPX to a draw within bo2. At the same time, their place in the top is extremely shaky, since the Giants show not the most stable results.
7. Skade
The Scandinavian organization burst onto the VALORANT pro-scene by signing the second iteration of Fabriken. One of the team's successes is getting into the LVL Clash 2 Playoffs, where the Swedes didn't let Team Liquid leave from the Group Stage.
They get their place largely thanks to a good performance in the group at LVL Clash 2. Under this tag, the new LATEKS captain's roster hasn't played many tournaments so far, but the victory over Team Liquid at LVL Clash 2 makes them stand out slightly from the others.
8. Nolpenki
Since the team's brilliant performance at WePlay! Invitational, the roster changed dramatically: vakk decided to move away from the Lithuanian roster to the international five. The result is a good performance in the TOURSTAT Summer Clash Group Stage, reaching the Playoffs from the second place.
The new multinational vakk's roster hasn't yet lost a single map at the TOURSTAT Summer Clash (while they have 2 defeats, but one technical, and the other with the old roster). The guys show a pretty cool game against such strong representatives of Tier-2 as FishkaVTom, Entropiq, forZe. At the same time, nolpenki have the potential to climb much higher positions in the top.
9. Entropiq
The early lineup of Entropiq was known as TBD. The Polish four and the ex-CS:GO player from Ukraine arch performed well at TOURSTAT Summer Clash, taking first place in the group stage.
Summer Clash leaders by points and maps. By far the best team in Poland, led by an experienced arch captain, also has a lot of potential, which I hope we will see at the upcoming First Strike.
10. forZe
The only representative of the CIS closes our top ten. Replacements in the roster were beneficial to the team: forZe won a couple of small tournaments.
The guys showed really impressive growth and confidently established themselves as a strong Tier-2 team. Although forZe didn't make it to the Summer Clash Playoffs, they managed to take a few small European tournaments and even stay in the top 10 at vlr.gg for a while.
Honorable mentions
Even though these teams weren't included in our top 10, we still recommend taking a closer look at them.
BIG - good performance in the GLX EU qualifiers and in the LVL Clash 2 group stage shows that the Germans can become a serious threat to opponents. FishkaVTom - could easily have been in the top, if not the constant changes in the roster, and unstable results. BBL Esports are still the best team in Turkey and still cannot reach their full potential. Gambit Esports is an incredibly strong roster on paper, which so far has only managed to win the Nicecactus Summer Trophy.
It should be noted that the battle on the Tier-2 scene is extremely fierce now. At the same time, there are practically no major and demonstrative tournaments in which we could accurately rank the teams in terms of strength. The more interesting it is to follow the scene: more surprises, more equal matches, more exciting spectator. VALORANT is gaining momentum, and everything has just started!
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