The Mongolz are writing the history books with every consecutive win. No other East Asian team has stayed inside the HLTV Top 10 for more than a week. The Mongolz have been within the Top 10 for 20 weeks now, with more to come. As of the time of writing this, The Mongolz just lost their S-Tier LAN Playoff streak, which was at 4 consecutive events—their best streak ever and the best of any East Asian team in the modern era (since CS:GO). The playoff streak started at the Perfect World Shanghai Major and continued to IEM Katowice, PGL Cluj-Napoca, and ESL Pro League Season 21.
What is quite surprising is that they had only ever once been in 2 S-tier LAN Playoffs, which was a softball 16-team playoff at ESL Pro League Season 19 and Yalla Compass. Even though they won Yalla Compass, these 2 events are not even close to the same caliber as any of the 4 they were making deep finishes at.
East Asia’s Recorded Past
It’s important to distinguish that, when speaking of The Mongolz’s greatness, they are paving the way for East Asia.
East Asia includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. There has never been a significant North Korean or Taiwanese team since 2014 and, as far as I know, ever. This leaves 4 countries that have competed at any significant level in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or CS2.
TYLOO led the way for China for some time as the only other East Asian team to peak at #10 on HLTV in 2018. They were only in the Top 10 for a single week and have fallen since, not having been within the Top 20 ranked teams since December 2019.
Other notable Chinese teams include Vici.CyberZen, who held the 2nd highest ranking, having peaked at #19 in October of 2016. Rare Atom peaked at #22 in August of 2022. Lynn Vision and Vici Gaming both peaked at #23.
The most well-known and successful South Korean-led CS:GO team was MVP PK, who hit #23 twice—once for a week in 2018 and once in 2019. This roster featured the legendary Korean duo of glow and solo, who played for WeMade FOX, winning the CS 1.6 World eSports Masters in 2010, an S-Tier LAN, defeating SK Gaming, Frag eXecutors, and Evil Geniuses along the way. Taking down names like fRoD, n0thing, TaZ, NEO, and Delpan was arguably all part of East Asia’s greatest achievement in any version of Counter-Strike for over a decade, and it may still be. Had the HLTV World Ranking been established by then, they likely would have been in the elite tier, a top 5 team. One of the WeMade FOX players, peri, did hit #17 on HLTV’s Top 20 in 2010, the highest achievement of any individual from East Asia in any version of Counter-Strike.
The best Japanese team in CS:GO was SCARZ Absolute, peaking at #59. I would say that their biggest achievement was taking down Renegades (#12 at the time) in a Best of 1 at the Asia Minor in 2018, although they did not advance to the FACEIT Major, losing out in the playoffs. Funnily, I watched them play in person in Tokyo at GALLERIA GAMEMASTER Cup 2018, where they took down the second-most notable Japanese team, Ignis (mostly known for having the player RIPablo Escobar).
There had been various other Mongolian teams that competed at a solid Tier 2 level, notably a previous iteration of The Mongolz with Zilkenberg and Machinegun, which peaked at #24 in the world. maaRaa was the coach of this roster. He also sometimes played for them. Let’s just say there was a lot of shuffling.
There have only been 3 teams in history that broke into the HLTV Top 20 teams for any span of time from East Asia: Vici.CyberZen, TYLOO, and The Mongolz. (A reminder that the HLTV Top 20 has only been kept as a record since October of 2014.)
The Mongolz are the only team to get into the single-digit ranking range for East Asian teams.
Central Asia Distinction
You may have noticed by now that I consistently refer to East Asian, not Asian. There is an important distinction to be made: Kazakh-majority teams have entered the Top 5 before. The most notable example was Avangar hitting #3 on HLTV’s ranking following their StarLadder Berlin 2nd place finish. As many know, I do prefer to sensationalize my tweets—especially in hot takes—but this time in written form I have to be the “but actually” guy lest I compromise the legitimacy of this article.
Checkmate Beginnings, bLitz, Techno, and maaRa
bLitz entered the HLTV rankings in February of 2020 under the lineup Checkmate, with 4 other Mongolian players. Checkmate qualified for the Perfect World League quickly after formation. However, the player Kaine slammed his hand in celebration and broke it. Out of sheer desperation, Checkmate welcomed Techno4k, who was only 15 at the time in 2020, and the pair of bLitz and Techno have not separated since.
The team toiled around in various Asian leagues and qualifiers to a bit of success by Tier 2 standards in the Perfect World League, even winning an online Bo3 versus Vici (#58 in the world at the time), the eventual winners of the league. They even took a map off of TYLOO, but Checkmate eventually finished in 6th place of a possible 10 positions in the league.
In July of 2021, maaRaa joined as the coach, and the trio of bLitz, Techno, and maaRa went on to pull off a stunning upset in the Asia RMR Open Qualifiers. In the Grand Finals, they faced off against Rare Atom (#81) with kaze, Mercury, aumaN, and advent. In a 2-0 victory, they qualified for the Asia RMR.
Within 10 days of qualifying for the RMR, they were signed to IHC, an esports organization backed by the cryptocurrency of the same name.
World Renown Under IHC
Just 6 weeks later, in April of 2022, they did the unthinkable. As the lowest-ranked team entering the Asia RMR at #78, IHC went on to defeat heavy favorites TYLOO and massive favorites Renegades. They won both series back to back, without dropping a map.
Both Techno and bLitz were in the 5 highest-performing players at an event that was loaded with players who were well-versed in international competition, such as Liazz (Australian), BnTeT (Indonesian), and Attacker (Chinese).
The dream did come to a crashing halt, however, once they entered the Major. They were only able to defeat the same Renegades team and lost the other 3 matches they had.
However, this provided valuable experience which they used as a springboard to begin dominating their local region. In the following 15 events, primarily East Asian leagues and qualifiers, they only failed to reach qualification or top 2 twice. They found consistency in a scene that was often cited as being the most random when it comes to regional play.
In the following Asia RMR for the IEM Rio Major, they once again came in poorly ranked. People were aware of their ability at this point, so it was less of a surprise but still impressive to see their consistency translate to qualifying for Counter-Strike’s premier event once again.
At IEM Rio, they crashed out in 2nd-to-last place with only a single win over Brazilian 00Nation.
Becoming The Mongolz
Due to the founders of the IHC cryptocurrency getting arrested, the IHC players reformed under The Mongolz banner, reviving a legendary Mongolian brand. Techno, bLitz, and maaRaa moved over to the new lineup.
Under The Mongolz banner, the lineup was able to once again qualify through the RMR. This time it was for the BLAST Paris Major in 2023, the final CS:GO Major.
As the Counter-Strike community said goodbye to CS:GO, The Mongolz said goodbye to 3 of their players: Bart4k, ANNIHILATION, and hasteka.
Despite qualifying for 3 consecutive Majors, maaRa, Techno, and bLitz decided to part ways with other consistent Mongolian forces and added 910 and mzinho just 3 weeks after their 3rd Major defeat. Funnily, 15-year-old mzinho was replacing his brother Bart4k on the team.
910 was a huge risk. At the time he was recruited, his primary Steam account had under 3,000 hours of play in CS:GO. For reference, most professional players today have over 15,000 hours. donk had over 12,000 when he joined Spirit, his first tier one team. 910 was found playing in LAN café 10-man matches. This was a gigantic leap of faith by The Mongolz core.
Senzu came from Team NKT after a peculiar incident. He was involved in a skin-stealing scandal. BnTeT’s tweet reads:
“What actually happened is that he gambled our skins that we lent to him and subsequently lost them. He then attempted to lie to us and avoid paying us back.”
Regardless of this, he’s been making waves as The Mongolz’s best player since.
Part 2 Coming Next Month – going over their CS2 journey and when they made the leap. Stay tuned!
