Top four holds firm in Dust2.us’ June 2024 Power Rankings

May was overall a mixed month for the North American scene, with Liquid having a decent month despite reported upcoming changes, while M80 and Complexity had fairly poor performances at IEM Dallas 2024. Meanwhile on the home front, ESL Challenger League Season 47 playoffs have played out largely as expected with M80 and Nouns running the roost while the other teams tried to sneak into ESL Pro League Season 20. Overall these mixed international results and expected domestic results have been the rankings move relatively little with roster changes seemingly playing the largest role.

As always, we assembled a panel of players, coaches, analysts, journalists, and talent to give their opinion on the state of the scene, with 21 responding to our call to arms. Let's see what they think below.

Here's a reminder on how our power ranking functions:

Our team rankings are determined based on a series of measurements where each team is allocated points, which are dependent on where they rank compared to their peers. This measurement is determined by the opinion of our panel, teams' relative HLTV ranking compared to other NA teams, and teams' tier of play. A team garners a higher tier depending on how frequently they compete internationally and in what division they play in during domestic competitions (ECL, Advanced, etc.). For the sake of our power ranking, we consider a team to be NA if they either have 3+ NA players or they spend a significant amount of their time competing in North America.

#1 Complexity (JT, floppy, Grim, hallzerk, EliGE | Coach: T.c, JamezIRL) (—) 985 pts

While Complexity gained around 50 points this month, their showing in May was quite mixed. While the team finished ESL Pro League Season 19 with a praiseworthy top-four finish, their last-place finish in IEM Dallas 2024 was highly disappointing especially their loss to a moribund Liquid roster. As Complexity are undoubtedly still NA's best team, hopefully their funk at IEM Dallas 2024 and YaLLa Compass 2024 is short-lived and they can finish their season strong at ESL Challenger Jönköping next week.

May Events: ESL Pro League Season 19, IEM Dallas 2024

#2 Liquid (NAF, YEKINDAR, skullz, cadiaN, Twistzz | Coach: zews) (—) 906 pts

With Liquid rumored to make one or more roster changes in the near future, they overall performed well under the circumstances. A top-eight finish at EPL S19, a grand finals appearance at the CCT Global Finals, and nearly making playoffs at IEM Dallas 2024 are all strong results considering the lack of confidence the team seemingly have in Casper "cadiaN" Møller's leadership. One can only guess how the team will change in the future, but hopefully it will keep Liquid in NA as a top team.

May Events: ESL Pro League Season 19, CCT Global Finals 2024, IEM Dallas 2024

#3 M80 (Swisher, reck, malbsMd, slaxz-, s1n | Coach: dephh) (—) 839 pts

M80's IEM Dallas 2024 run was basically a dud as they had to face FaZe in their opener before being swiftly eliminated by HEROIC in the lower bracket. This result was a snap back to reality for M80 after a strong showing at ESL Pro League Season 19 and suggests they're not quite ready for the limelight yet as HEROIC were at the event with a stand-in. However, the team is far and away the best NA team in tier two and their ~400 point lead against Nouns shows they are still closer to NA's top teams rather than its ECL-caliber teams.

May Events: IEM Dallas 2024, ESL Challenger League Season 47

#4 Nouns (nosraC, cJ, junior, Jeorge, RUSH | Coach: adreN) (—) 472 pts

Nouns had a good albeit expected month, toiling away at their job as one of NA's best domestic teams in ECL and a number of smaller events. At the time of publication the team are currently in the hunt for a spot in ESL Pro League Season 20 and our ranking suggests they are the favorite to do so above Wildcard and Party Astronauts. The recent addition of William "RUSH" Wierzba has been a fantastic change thus far as the team are playing their best CS in recent months while the former Party Astronauts player has been putting up good numbers. Good stuff all around from Nouns.

May Events: ESL Challenger League Season 47

#5 Wildcard (stanislaw, JBa, SLIGHT, Sonic, Grizz | Coach: horvy) (+2) 418 pts

The start of this month saw Wildcard replace Su "C4LLM3SU3" Qihao with Adam "Grizz" Golden as their Chinese starlet had to return home for a family matter. Despite this, Wildcard climbed in the rankings thanks to a strong month that saw the team secure wins over all but NA's top teams in the form of M80 and Nouns. The team are currently in the hunt for an EPL S20 spot, which would be a major win for the team after their previous LAN outing, IEM Chengdu 2024, was wracked with issues out of their control.

May Events: ESL Challenger League Season 47

#6 Party Astronauts (ben1337, cxzi, WolfY, Infinite, FaNg | Coach: Viathan) (-1) 379 pts

Party Astronauts slid down a position likely due to making multiple roster changes this month, seeing RUSH poached and Connor "chop" Sullivan chopped while Gage "Infinite" Green and Justin "FaNg" Coakley joined PA's ranks. While it is still early days and people may not know what to make of this roster just yet, early signs have been very positive. In May the team traded blows with the likes of Wildcard and M80 and are still in the hunt for a spot in EPL S20. The team are set to attend ESL Challenger Jönköping next week and that will be the test for Party Astronauts as they try to show more than they did at ESL Challenger Melbourne.

May Events: ESL Challenger League Season 47

#7 NRG (oSee, Brehze, HexT, autimatic, Walco | Coach: daps) (+2) 345 pts

NRG have slowly but surely been getting better two months since the addition of Colby "Walco" Walsh and Timothy "autimatic" Ta. However, with the team still regularly taking losses to M80 and Nouns while also occasionally losing to teams below their stature, any further ranking climb may require a deep run online or on LAN, something that will not happen this season with the team recently being eliminated from ECL S47.

May Events: ESL Challenger League Season 47

#8 Legacy (latto, dumau, NEKIZ, b4rtiN, saadzin | Coach: chucky) (—) 316 pts

As an ESEA Advanced team, Legacy are cursed with few opportunities to prove themselves against NA's top teams. Despite this, it is safe to say our panel views Legacy as a future threat to the NA scene especially with the recent addition of Guilherme "saadzin" Pacheco. With the team carving a path of destruction on their way to ECL S48 it won't be long before we get to see Legacy regularly stack up against NA teams.

May Events: None

#9 BOSS (Cryptic, freshie, d4rty, Pluto) (-3) 226 pts

This month was very sad for BOSS as the roster was slowly picked apart by the attrition that comes with being an orgless squad. With the team losing FaNg, Tommy "Axed" Ryan, and now Josh "PwnAlone" Pigue this may be the last month we see the BOSS roster in action, which is honestly a tragedy after being so impressive at the start of the year.

May Events: ESL Challenger League Season 47

#10 Elevate (snav, dare, shane, Peeping, dea) (—) 219 pts

Elevate managed to hold onto their tenth-place position quite comfortably by being around 150 points ahead of LAG. While this is all well and good, the excitement surrounding the squad has clearly worn off, and with Joshua "m1cks" Micks leaving the team recently one has to wonder where improvement will come from as the team have been on a general downward trend for some time.

May Events: ESL Challenger League Season 47