10 Best CS Teams of All Time (CS:GO, CS2)

What is the best CS team of all time? Lots of teams have risen to prominence and faded into obscurity since the game’s first tournaments in the early 2000s.

Additionally, most of the oldest CS teams are no longer active on the competitive scene, making it hard to measure their results against modern contenders. Thus, considering a chaotic tournament structure during the first decade, we’ve decided to limit our rating to just CS:GO and CS2.

The teams we’ve selected for this rating are consistent performers rather than beginners who just got lucky once. All of them either won a Major at least once or grabbed an Intel Grand Slam gold, showing dominance during whole competitive seasons. Those are the main criteria we used to choose the 10 best CS teams of all time for you to see.

Ninjas in Pyjamas | 2000 - Present Time

The first team to show impressive results after the CS 1.6 era was NiP — a legendary Swedish organization celebrating its 24th birthday in 2024. The shift from CS 1.6 to Global Offensive wasn’t immediate, with some teams participating even in Counter-Strike: Source tournaments for a while before moving to the newer version of the game. Ninjas were one of those teams, combining the 1.6 experience of “f0rest” and “GeT_RiGht” with the new-game prodigy “friberg” (who has since earned a personal graffiti on Inferno) and took the Pro scene by storm.

The team shined during the early CS:GO era, having an absolutely crazy 87-0 map winning streak on LAN events during 2012-2013, deserving the status of the best team in CS history simply for that achievement alone. Despite dozens of golden medals during the first few years, the pinnacle of their glory came at the Cologne Major 2014 — the third-ever major in CS:GO. Interestingly, Ninjas in Pyjamas remains one of the few consistent teams balancing between tier-1 and tier-2 teams, never truly leaving the viewer’s radar.

Fnatic | 2004 - Present Time

Another Swedish roster, but this time playing for a UK foundation, Fnatic was the first team to grab CS:GO Major — DreamHack Winter 2013. Their legendary core of “flusha,” “JW,” “KRIMZ,” and “olofmeister” were one of the few squads who could oppose NiP at the time. Fnatic also performed great when under pressure, granting them two more Majors: Cologne and Katowice in 2015.

The last couple of years were quite disappointing for Fnatic fans, as the squad struggled to compete in S-tier events and quickly lost their status as the best Counter-Strike team of all time. They often change rosters (except “KRIMZ”) in the hopes of somehow returning to the golden times when they earned two dedicated graffiti thanks to “olofmester.”

Virtus.Pro | 2003 - Present Time

Another serious obstacle for Ninjas in Pyjamas’ dominance was the CIS-founded (2003) team with a Polish players’ core, the renowned Virtus.Pro. The Bears found a great-working formula of three older players (“TaZ,” “NEO,” and “pashaBiceps”) and two young guns (“Snax” and “byali”). They took the second CS:GO Major — ESL Major Series One Katowice 2014 — building great momentum for future successes.

Their squad was a force to be reckoned with on the pro scene until 2018, when Virtus PRO felt the need to replace veterans with less experienced younger players. The dozens of small changes eventually made the team change the roster once again when they bought the full squad of Outsiders — IEM Rio Major 2022 winners. However, even this radical decision didn’t change the situation all that much, as the team has struggled to get out of A-tier events ever since.

Team Envy | 2007 - 2021

Team Envy was the fourth exceptionally strong squad of the CS:GO era, with the core of Major-winning LDLC (“kioShiMa,” “NBK-,” and “Happy”) and promising prospects “apEX” and “kennyS.” The French roster first finished runners-up in the Cologne Major 2015 but fought back immediately in the following Major in Cluj-Napoka in 2015. Between those two Majors, they crushed DreamHack Open London 2015 and Gfinity Champion of Champions 2015.

However, achieving a peak in Counter-Strike seemed to ruin the team, as they struggled at almost every following event. The last notable win they were able to achieve in early 2017 was WESG 2017, earning the team an astonishing $800,000. A few reshuffles didn’t make things better, and team bosses changed the French vector for an American one in late 2018. In just two years time, Envy was disbanded and now can’t be found in the Counter-Strike matches schedules anywhere. However, in their relatively brief history they made enough headway to be mentioned as one of the best teams in Counter-Strike history.

Natus Vincere (NAVI) | 2009 - Present Time

Founded in 2009, NAVI are arguably the best CS team of all time, staying incredibly consistent for 15 years. They won multiple tournaments during the CS 1.6 era and successfully transitioned the winning attitude to the game’s modern version. Their worst period was the beginning of CS:GO, as they needed a few years to return to the top. Still, only several lost Majors in 2015, 2016 and 2018 they managed to reach the top once more at the Stockholm Major in 2021.

Just before the success in Sweden, Natus Vincere received their Intel Grand Slam golden bars for the third season, dominating the Pro scene that year (Blast Global Final 2020 & World Final 2021; IEM Cologne 2021, ESL Pro League Season 14). Their main player for 7 years before the release of CS2, “s1mple”, set multiple records (three HLTV’s Top-1 awards, 21 MVPs medals) and is regarded as the game’s GOAT. However, even without him, NAVI took the first CS2 Major in Copenhagen (2024), with young Ukrainians “b1t” and “w0nderful” doing especially well at the event.

SK Gaming | 1997 - 2018

Starting their competitive Esports path even earlier (1997) than the release of Counter-Strike, SK Gaming surely deserve a mention in the greatest CS team of all time ranking. They claimed dozens of elite trophies during the 1.6 era, and added plenty in CS:GO as well. Victories at the ESL Pro League S6, EPICENTER 2017, and Esports Championship Series Season 3 had also filled their wallets by more than $200k each.

Still, the team’s most notable achievement remains their victory at Cologne Major 2016, which was brought by the legendary Brazilian squad with “FalleN,” “fer,” and “coldzera.” The latter was crowned the #1 Best Player of the Year in 2016 and 2017. Legendary Brazilians joined SK in 2016 after their MLG Columbus Major 2016 win under the Luminosity Gaming tag and then returned to the flags of MIBR (Made in Brazil) in 2018.

Astralis | 2016 - Present Time

Not including Astralis in the list of the best Counter-Strike teams of all time will surely be a crime, especially considering how dominant the Danish team was during their prime. It was founded in 2016 with a clear understanding of the team’s goals, so managers immediately brought the best Danish players at the time: “dupreeh,” “device,” “Xyp9x,” and “karrigan.” The latter had the most experience but couldn’t cope with the IGL role and was soon replaced by “gla1ve,” while the later “Kjaerbye” trade for “Magisk” made things even better.

Just let numbers and titles speak for themselves:

1. 4 Majors (three in a row): Atlanta 2017, London 2018, Katowice 2019, and Berlin 2019;
2. ESL Pro League: Season 7, Season 8, Season 12;
3. First-ever Intel Grand Slam with 1 million dollars as extra reward;
4. ECS Seasons 2 and 5, ELEAGE Premier 2018;
5. BLAST Global Final 2019.

And those are just the most notable of the team’s elite trophies, while Astralis won dozens of other events as well and topped the CS2 Pro teams rankings for more than a year in a row. However, since 2019 the squad haven’t pulled any notable wins, and it seems like they burned out (somewhat unsurprisingly). The team started a reshuffle cycle, which continues in 2024 without notable achievements so far.

Team Liquid | 2000 - Present Time

The CS story of Team Liquid started only with the release of the Global Offensive in 2012. Despite being based in Europe, CS fans know that this team always had a North American player core, with “EliGE,” “Twistzz,” and “NAF” being its brightest representatives. They are the team that put an end to the Astralis era, beating the Danes on multiple occasions in a row.

Their trophy cabinet might not be the largest in our list of the best teams in CS history, but they have a few notable achievements. For instance, TL showed the fastest run for the Intel Grand Slam Season 2, claiming the golden bars in 63 days, and winning four big events, including ESL Pro League Season 9 and ESL One Cologne 2019. Intel was even forced to change the rules and stricten them to prevent this sort of speedrunning in the future. Nonetheless, Liquid wasn’t able to establish themselves as the next dominant team, with their prominence lasting for only a few months. Nonetheless, it was enough to imprint their name in CS history forever.

FaZe Clan | 2010 - Present Time

FaZe Clan is another example of a rich organization with smart management. It launched a CS department in 2016 and quickly transformed it into one of the best CS teams ever. FaZe has always been the team ready to pay for talented players, gathering dream teams over and over again. Unsurprisingly, they have a bunch of world-class talents in their squad at different times, including “NiKo,” “GuardiaN,” and “olofmeister,” backed with veterans “rain” and “karrigan.” The latter two are still in the squad, which now features young but proven talents “ropz” and “broky.”

FaZe were and remain a serious opponent for any pro team just by the weight of its players’ individual skill. Their achievements include taking ELEAGUE Premier 2017, ECS Season 4, ESL Pro League Season 15 and Season 17, and IEM Katowice and Cologne in 2022. The diamonds in this collection are the Antwerp Major 2022 and 4th Intel Grand Slam. The new game version also didn’t disrupt their success: the team claimed some notable victories at the first three CS2 S-Tier events (IEM Sydney 2023, Thunderpick 2023, and Asia Championship 2023) alongside 8 finals on elite events in a row.

Team Vitality | 2013 - Present Time

The youngest CS team in our rating is Team Vitality, whose CS department was launched at the end of 2018. Although the bosses decided to rely on the old lions of the French scene like “apEX,” “Happy,” “RpK,” and “NBK-,” their main star became a young talent “ZywOo.” Despite winning only two S-tier events in 2019 (ECS Season 7 and EPICENTER 2019), Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut won HLTV’s #1 Player of the Year. Vitality had a pretty shaky path to glory and wasn’t especially notable during 2020, but the individual level of the French superstar, which you can clearly see in the CS Pro players’ stats, allowed them to grab BLAST Fall 2020.

Things changed drastically after bosses decided to make Vitality an international team in early 2022, offering the coaching role for Astralis coaching legend “zonic.” The Dane brought “Magisk” and “dupreeh” with him, but the reshuffled team needed more than a year to start claiming their first trophies. However, the wait eventually paid off, as Vitality grabbed Paris Major 2022 in May, won $400,000 at Gamers8 2023 in August, and closed the year with two BLAST titles: Fall Final 2023 and World Final 2023. Despite the team's struggles in 2024, there is no doubt they will be able to fight back and claim a few more trophies till the end of the year.

We also have an interesting article on our website about who own CS2 teams and how they affect players.