Time to take a look at what made the NA rankings move in January 2017.
Continuing our series of GosuRankings snapshots, taken at the start of every month, is this edition for North America. January started off the new year slowly but surely, with one major tournament for North America as well as the start of OGN's APEX Season 2. The listing below is according to the GosuRankings snapshot taken on January 31st.
1. Envy (-)
EnVyUs has been alone at the top for a long while. Thanks to their (mostly) stable roster, the leadership of Internethulk and the support of their organization, this team has been dominant since the Closed Beta, and the world's best team for most of that period as well. Currently playing in Season 2 of OGN's APEX league, the team has not been playing many competitive matches of late. This schedule means that they are slowly but surely losing rating points, decreasing the distance with our (new) number 2. While this distance is decreasing, the power level of EnVyUs is still at an all time high as they look like one of the favorites to win the OGN APEX title (again).
2. Immortals (+4)
Immortals is continuing the hard work that made them Most Promising team for 2016 in our GosuAwards. This team moved up a staggering 4 spots over the month of January, and isn't looking to slow down there. While the team wait for EnVyUs to return, to test their play against our number 1, Immortals continues to prove that they are indeed worth this spot. The Winter Premiere was especially successful for them as they won at LAN, never really being in danger of elimination.
3. Cloud9 (-1)
Cloud9, while dropping to the 3rd spot in our Rankings, is a hard team to judge at the moment. While they are by no means disappointing their fans, the only match they played last month was against CONBOX Spirit in the OGN APEX league. They did take this match with a 3-1 score, but CONBOX is far from the hardest team in their group (or the event in general). Cloud9 as a roster and organization has all the tools required to succeed, and we hope to see them play more often in the near future.
4. Fnatic (-)
Similar to C9 is Fnatic. They have only played one match in January, losing 0-3 to KongDoo Panthera. Panthera will probably come out of their group in 1st place, and so Fnatic will need to make sure they can defeat the Korean teams RunAway and Flash Lux which, while not favorites for the title, are not to be underestimated. As it is the first time Fnatic is in Asia, they should be able to get a lot of practice time in against the dedicated Korean teams.
5. Faze (-2)
Last month we stated FaZe stands and falls with ShadowBurn, but it was also proven that TwoEasy was an integral part of the roster. After removing TwoEasy from the active roster, and replacing him with Mikeya. This change has not had the wanted results just yet, as FaZe is currently struggling against teams they really should be beating. They ended January with a 42% winrate, even with the absence of most teams ranked above them.
6. Complexity (-1)
CompLexity can't seem to find the key to improving beyond their current position. Some thought their (unique) embrace of Sombra would give them the edge against their competition, but even after major buffs to that character they still often get caught off-guard. They ended January with a solid 50% winrate, but the final three matches (losses against Kungarna and Luminosity) hindered the momentum created by their solid performances in the earlier stages of the Winter Premiere.
Luminosity is one of those teams that really could go either way currently. They have solid performances against a lot of teams, and their roster change seems to be working out, but at the same time we aren't expecting surprises of them just yet. It will take some kind of click, either in terms of their synergy or the meta, for this team to break through into the top 5 but we know the potential is there.
8. Kungarna (New)
Some of the more casual viewers might only know them as Ghost Gaming, the organization they represented during the playoffs of the Winter Premiere, but Kungarna has returned to being sponsor-less. The surprise of the Winter Premiere showed that there is still space in the scene for teams to show up and claim their spot. After an impressive run, winning multiple times against a lot of the teams listed above in this article, the future of this team is unclear. There are rumours of the team splitting up, or replacing several members, and this means it is unclear whether they can keep their current trajectory to rise in the rankings or they will be gone when February shows up.
So did your favorite team make the list? Disagree with how we ranked our teams? Let us know below in the comments!
