Ranking Watchers - February 12
This is the first edition of our Ranking Watchers series, where we check up on the HLTV World Rankings for North American and look at some of the biggest changes and the reasons behind them for the past week. Here are the main teams who had large rank changes this week:
#3 
Torqued (+8)
Keven "AZK" Lariviere
Braxton "swag" Pierce
Matt "Pollo" Wilson
Joshua "steel" Nissan
Kenneth "koosta" Suen
Torqued rose eight spots this week mainly due to their performance at cs_summit 2 over the weekend. Despite losing to SK and Liquid 0-2, the brand new lineup took down the Russians in Vega Squadron in two maps, a team which is currently ranked 16th in the world. This puts Torqued ahead of many NA teams in Pro League such as NRG, Ghost, and Splyce.
#8 Atmosphere (+7)
Joshua "Hunter" Madore
Dion "Bl4ckiice" Mckenzie
Gabriel "GMAN" Ordaz
Ludovic "tiz" Emond
Alfonso "krZ" Fiorani
Atmosphere have made huge waves in MDL this season, as they currently hold a 5-0 record, something only tied by Swole Patrol. Their one result this past week was a win over Etherian, a team which has been looking quite hot themselves recently, and attended the Legends Cup last weekend. It'll be worthy checking out how they fare against some of the top teams in MDL.
#22 Iceberg (+8)
Nick "alter" Jackson
Brenden "stellar" McGrath
Warren "hades" Rettich
Thomas "tconnors" Connors
Jonathan "djay" Dallal
The positive results which would have resulted in this rise within the domestic rankings include MDL wins against HWML and AZIO, alongside a win over Blackwoodproductions in the fourth ECS Season 5 Open Qualifier. While these didn't grant significant points, it was still enough to propel them above some of the teams now below them such as BlackOut and subtLe.
#25 Wise (+10)
Nick "N4j" Norman
SJ "SJP" Park
Luis "Lui" Arzuaga
William "shonk" Kittrell
Shawn "Magowi" O'Malley
Despite making many roster changes over the past weeks, this team still managed to rise in the rankings after some decent results. Their wins last week included a BO1 over h00liGaNz and a BO3 over Guerrilla Tactics. Again, these aren't particularly impressive, but stand above the teams below them. This advancement in rank may not last however, as it seems the Wise roster will change once again...
#27 subtLe (-9)
Kyle "OCEAN" O'Brien
Terry "dsr" Rioux
Matthew "no_one" Congdon
Leonardo "Laski" Arroyo
Derrick "LILMAN" Boyne
subtLe had a terrible week, not picking up a single win in the three MDL games they played. The new formed Grizzlys, RONIN, and Mask Off, all took maps off of the Kyle "OCEAN" O'Brien-led team, which led to them losing a lot of points. Considering the relative strength of each of those teams, it's unlikely this level of underperformance will continue, but it isn't a great sign for the young guns Leonardo "Laski" Arroyo and Matthew "no_one" Congdon.
#28 CheckSix (-11)
Josh "joshbM" Blier
Jacob "L0NER" Webster
Daniel "virtus" Carrillo
Nassir "rugrat" Francique
The combination of losing their games and losing a player really hit CheckSix hard this week. They failed to take down either of Freedom 35 or Mythic in MDL, and as a result the team cut Andy "LenNox" Collins from the roster. The team will be looking to rebuild and it likely can only be up from here. Their next match, which will take place in two days, will be against Etherian, and can serve as a great place to prove themselves again versus the better MDL teams.
