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The Best Classic Era CSGO Teams of All Time

Making a choice based list of the best “Classical Era” CSGO teams of all time was never going to be an easy task. We’ve seen great performances from respected esports organizations like CLG, BIG and Heroic, but these teams haven’t quite managed to make the cut.

So whilst our rundown of the best classic era CSGO teams of all time is probably going to get a little controversial, we think that the following six esports organizations have given us the best CSGO classical era matches of all time, and that’s why the best esports betting sites always favor them.

The best CSGO roster to ever play for the Fnatic organization

Keep in mind the purpose of these is to reminisce for a certain extent who were the teams that laid the groundwork, for what we know as the best tactical shooter of all time. Without further ado let’s start!

Fnatic

There is no denying the fact that the classic Fnatic team was easily amongst the all-time greats within any esports scene let alone CSGO odds. Thanks to the efforts of top CSGO players like the dependable KRiMZ and the wildcard adaptable gunner JW, it seems Fnatic were just going from juggernaut to juggernaut.

They filled a stable roster for a couple of years featuring roleplayers such as Brollan and Golden on top of the already established KRiMZ/JW duo. And this is exactly what really makes Fnatic formidable as an opponent. They have an incredible ability to work together as a team, and understand each other within a small amount of time.

Ever since they won DreamHack Winter 2015, the team has gone on winning streaks for the last 5 years. Their most recent big achievement is a victory against Mousesports achieving first place and trophy at ESL Pro League Season 11: Europe.

Fnatic takes the top spot not because of their current form, as recently it has definitely been lackluster, but as a team that has been at the top of the scene for almost two decades. Lets just see some of the high profile players that were initiated or contracted early in their careers by Fnatic.

You will find some of the best CS:GO players ever have all been part of Fnatic over the years: f0rest, flusha, xizt, Xyp9x, karrigan, Olofmeister. Their ability to scout talent and build competitive lineups year upon year is what makes Fnatic the best CSGO team ever in our humble opinion.

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Ninjas in Pyjamas’ 2013 CSGO Roster

The Swedish established esports organization, Ninjas in Pyjamas, have always been a dominant force in the game since way earlier than their team conception within CSGO. Whilst many people look back to the 2012-2013 era where the team won titles such as the Electronic Sports World Cup in emphatic fashion, or even way back when “Potti” founded the organization and shaped up the Counter-Strike scene as we know it, it’s clear that Ninjas in Pyjamas still offer plenty of value and potential for future players.

Unfortunately in recent years, NiP lost two of the legendary players which we can argue were the heart and soul of the team. Both f0rest and GeT_RiGhT left the roster to pursue their luck with Team Dignitas, as most of the community assumed was due to their older age by this point. The last “great” player on the roster in Lekr0 also left the Swedish team at the end of the 2020 season.

The team however, has performed surprisingly well after all these players have decided to part ways. They are still considered among the top teams globally despite constantly shifting rosters, while still looking to have what was known as the “good old days” of Counter Strike.

Much like Fnatic, there is plenty of tradition and legacy behind the NiP name and this is what we value in this list, thus placing them so high on our all-time selection. A season or two cannot shake down the greatness of Ninjas in Pyjamas. It is about time we get to witness them dominate again, hopefully with some well made scouting and selection decisions.

Na’Vi to be honest is what NiP fans wish can happen when rebuilding a roster after your staple players grow in age.NaVi has grown to be the ultimate powerhouse in competitive CS:GO lately and together with Fnatic and Astralis still fights for the title of the best CSGO team of all time. After the magnificent three-peat of trophies at IEM Season IV,WCG 2010 and ESWC 2010, NaVi has continued to be a top title contender in the CSGO scene uninterrupted for almost a decade.

Results greatly improved after acquiring the greatest player of all time Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev back around 2016. The maturity and experience provided by Edward and Zeus who competed in NaVi since the creation of CS 1.6 and the fresh aim by S1mple, NaVi quickly became one of the most intimidating opponents to meet in a best of series.

While the latter two have already retired from the scene, Na’Vi was quick to fill the void with younger players such as Electronic and Boombl4 which are still going strong in or out of the Ukrainian giants.

Natus Vincere is currently considered the #1 team in the world by most CSGO betting sites experts and per most rankings, even after going through a total of three rebuilds during their lifetime.

Virtus.Pro

Virtus.Pro’s 2014 CSGO Roster

Virtus.pro is an organization that defined the Counter-Strike CIS region for most of two decades, definitely the fan favorite, as a roster they were by far the most charismatic and engaging professional players in CSGO history. They are also a team that has been running without big issues since 2003 outside of the “Mercedes” incident most of the community knows by now. They do however have severe ups and downs in accounts of their performance.

We all remember the best Virtus.pro roster in CSGO: paszaBiceps, Neo, Byalli, Snax and their leader TaZ. Since 2019, Virtus.pro has a completely different logo, a new outlook in esports life, and an entirely new lineup of players. Sadly since 2018 Virtus.pro has not been able to strike a competitive roster to the level the previous juggernauts mentioned were able to be.

However the newest lineup over the past year has definitely shown some promise, the main situation is to find that first “generational” talent to build their roster around. Coming into 2022 and 2023, VP shows a lot of promise and in time hopefully will go back to at least a shadow of their former selves.

Team Liquid

We obviously need to bring at least one team from the North American scene, and we chose Team Liquid to represent its region. It is a close call to choose between Cloud9, Team Liquid, and iBuyPower/Complexity. Nevertheless the North American that actually had an era of dominance is the one we chose for today.

Team Liquid managed to be one if not the best CSGO team in the year 2019, winning multiple titles in a row with its biggest one being the “Intel Grand Slam Season 2” with a 1 million dolar prize pool. That roster was definitely the perfect balance between raw fraggin power and teammate support the North American scene has ever seen.

The roster consisted of: nitr0, Stewie2K, Twistzz, NAF, and EliGE. How the roster came to be is actually an interesting story that started with one of the biggest plays of CSGO, the jumping no scope sequence from Coldzera.

It was 2016, and Team Liquid gambled to take a young immature rookie known as S1mple, of course now we know what it came to be of such rookie however at the time he was constantly involved in controversy, and Team Liquid with his help managed to reach the “MLG Major Championship: Columbus 2016” semifinals.

They were bound to face the underdog of the tournament Luminosity Gaming which made an absolutely incredible comeback in the series after the previously mentioned no scope sequence of Coldzera, the most viewed play of all time, thus losing the chance to win NA’s first trophy.

After this terrible thing happened, Team Liquid simply couldn’t stand it, rebuilding their roster from scratch with raw North American talent. Which after a couple of years arriving in 2019 became the most dominant CSGO team in the world in that year.

Luminosity Gaming

Ninjas in Pyjamas’ 2013 CSGO Roster

Last but not least we have LG, something you definitely saw coming. This roster is what marked the transition from classic to modern CSGO, as with minimal resources and incredible talent they were able to dethrone the usual first place suspects in the CSGO scene.
Luminosity Gaming from early 2016 until late 2018 were able to accomplish either first or second place in every single CSGO event they attended. This is a feat almost no team is able to achieve or replicate to this current day.

The roster was not very known about at the time, which consisted of: FalleN, Coldzera, Fer, Fnx, and Taco. This roster had it all, a strong leader in FalleN, one of the best fraggers of all time in Coldzera, two incredible roleplayers in Fer and Taco, and lastly a lot of controversy/ego from Fnx.

This team was pure friendship and tolerance and were able to stick together even during organizational issues that later made them move and signed with SK Gaming, where even then their dominance continued for a while, making them one of the most beloved teams for all the CSGO betting fans out there.

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