The MongolZ is the best team in Counter-Strike 2 esports today, at least according to Valve.
Valve has published its latest update to the VRS, the official ranking system that determines invitees to Counter-Strike tournaments including the vaunted Major competitions. And in a somewhat surprising twist, it wasn’t Team Spirit or Team Vitality that landed atop those latest rankings. It was The MongolZ.
The best Asia-based Counter-Strike team in the region’s history has had an excellent second half of 2025, and now has something more tangible to show for it. But how did this team end up taking this spot over MOUZ, Team Vitality, or Team Spirit?
SEMI-FINAL! Vitality vs TheMongolz – Official Highlights – BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 2
The MongolZ, by an extremely narrow margin, sits atop the Valve global rankings (VRS) as of September 15, 2025. While Valve hasn’t yet officially publish a set of rankings for this date, the VRS’s methodology can be freely utilized, meaning that anyone can math out which team is at the top at any given time. And on this particular day, using this ranking criteria, The MongolZ is the best team in Counter-Strike 2. The top 10 rankings are as follows, as determined by their points in the VRS:
The surge up the rankings following The MongolZ winning the Esports World Cup. Throughout 2024 and 2025, the team has consistently posted strong showings at prominent tournaments, but not quite managing to actually win them. Winning the Esports World Cup by topping Aurora Gaming was a huge coup for the squad, and was preceded by a landmark win over Team Vitality in the semifinals.
This capped a strong summer for the team that also included a second-place finish in the BLAST Austin Major, a second-place finish in BLAST Bounty Fall, and a top-six finish in IEM Cologne.
Just as important as The MongolZ’s success is a few key losses for Team Vitality, Team Spirit, MOUZ, and Team Falcons, the other teams contending for the top spot. The MongolZ took two wins over Vitality while Spirit sputtered in the BLAST Open Fall qualifiers and Esports World Cup surrounding a roster change. MOUZ is on a skid against the other top-five-ranked CS2 teams, while Team Falcons is weighed down by early eliminations in the BLAST Austin Major and IEM Cologne.
GRAND FINAL! Spirit vs TheMongolz – Official Highlights – BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 2
With razor-thin differences between the top-three teams in the standings, The MongolZ’s place atop the standings is tenuous. Even without losing, The MongolZ could be supplanted by Vitality or Spirit just based on strength of opposition as competition continues around the world. Still, this is a legitimate triumph for the team, and a new milestone for the Asian region as a whole. If considering popular and credible rankings, this is first time a Counter-Strike team from the region has occupied the top rank in the long history of the game dating back over multiple decades.
The MongolZ isn’t unanimously regarded as the top team across all notable CS2 esports ranking systems, though it does have a credible claim at being the best.
The team’s consistency throughout the year is important, but it was also a definitive step behind MOUZ, Team Spirit, and Team Vitality throughout much of 2025. Valve’s ranking system has a “bounty” format that rewards teams based on the strength of their competition. The MongolZ’s surge to first place is largely owed to Team Vitality and Team Falcons having large bounties attached to them. This helped to offset losses by MongolZ to lower-ranked teams including 3DMAX and NAVI.
While the VRS is the official ranking system of CS2, other subjective rankings are often held in higher regard by most fans. Team Vitality is still ranked first across most subjective considerations, though it has lost ground after cooling down from a white-hot start to the year.
The MongolZ may or may not be the best, but here’s no doubting that the team is still firmly cemented as an elite team right now.
Featured image credit: Perfect World
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