Valve to end team and tournament organizer partnerships starting in 2025

3-8-2023 19:32

Counter-Strike's IP owner will put limits to the way tournaments are run when it comes to invitations and partnerships between teams and TOs.

Valve has announced three measures that will limit the business relationships between teams and tournament organizers, effectively putting an end to leagues and tournaments with partnered teams.

ESL and BLAST, the two biggest operators in Counter-Strike, have both set up their circuits with teams that are handed invites straight into their tournaments and sharing the revenues. This has largely gone against the game's historic ethos, which relied on a plethora of tournament organizers running events for an open field of teams and paid out with prize pools.

Now, Valve is going back to roots by reopening the field and forcing tournament operators to either invite teams based on Valve's own ranking system or by holding open qualifiers.

The three rules Valve has broadly announced while still working on the finer details are:

Tournament organizers will no longer have unique business relationships or other conflicts of interest with teams that participate in their events.

Invitations to all tournaments will use our ranking system (detailed here), or otherwise be determined by open qualifiers.

Any compensation for participating teams—prize pool or otherwise—will be made public and will be driven by objective criteria that can be inspected by the community.

The North American software company has given teams and tournament organizers with existing long term commitments time to redirect the ship and a moratorium on the new rules is in place until 2025.

Valve's announcement can be read here in full.

ESL and BLAST sent out their own announcements after Valve's, stating that they will remain in CS under the new conditions and that their tournaments will be filled with teams either from Valve's ranking or open qualifiers.

ESL FACEIT Group's SVP of Game Ecosystems, Ulrich Schulze, also said that ESL's revenue share model would go from selected teams to all teams participating at their events.

2023-08-03 19:32

16 replies

so how will this affect HLTV ranking? will you guys use valve ranking? did u guys help develop their ranking? will they use your ranking?

2023-08-03 19:51

15 replies

Bro the link is in the steam post This is Valve's ranking system: github.com/ValveSoftware/counter-strike/..

2023-08-03 19:54

14 replies

Forze better than G2. What a joke ranking, lmao

2023-08-03 20:26

4 replies

G2 were absolutely shit for a long time ? They had two good bo3 so far, almost lost to EG which are rank 47 in Americas. Even furia female is higher ranked than EG.

2023-08-04 06:21

3 replies

Wrong EG, they are 11th in NA

2023-08-04 18:04

2 replies

I said Americas, and furia female are ranked higher.

2023-08-04 18:28

1 reply

Like I said it’s the wrong EG. The one ranked lower than furia fe doesn’t exist anymore

2023-08-05 04:50

i know its valve ranking. HOW IF IT EVEN WILL IT AFFECT HLTV RANKING IS MY QUESTION.

2023-08-03 20:34

5 replies

Since the ranking here has coexisted with ESL's ranking system, I don't see any good reason for hltv to stop having a ranking system. Similarly, I don't see there being any changes because of this. There may be a revamp to hltv's stats system with the transition to CS2, but there's no way to know without being hltv.

2023-08-03 21:00

It will affect the HLTV rankings because it will affect which teams get invited to which lan tournaments and "big events" If you get a basic understanding of how the HLTV rankings work, you will see how it will be affected.

2023-08-03 21:47

3 replies

yes i know, but this is still not my question lul, i wanna know if they adapt official ranking bcuz its gonna be the official game ranking

2023-08-03 22:33

2 replies

No, I highly doubt that. As it stands, valve's ranking was the official ranking for major qualification. HLTV has put a lot of time and effort in their ranking and rating systems. It's okay to have an independent ranking since they're based on completely different things.

2023-08-03 23:02

HLTV ranking = form ranking Valve ranking = invite ranking they can coexist, people can choose which one they think is more accurate

2023-08-04 02:34

the more i look at this ranking the more its starting to make sense but genuinely how is forze that high? it looks like they rank the major really highly (GL, Apeks) but forze bummed out pretty much.

2023-08-04 06:57

1 reply

forze won cct online finals 2023

2023-08-06 08:27

bro they have showmatch teams and teams that don't exist anymore on here lol

2023-08-05 05:21

Absolutely massive change

2023-08-03 19:32

30 replies

+huge

2023-08-03 19:46

ITS HAPPENING EVERYONE STAY CALM

2023-08-03 19:53

4 replies

STAY FUCKING CALM

2023-08-03 21:59

3 replies

I'M CALM AAARRRRGGGH

2023-08-04 07:58

2 replies

CALM DOWN BUDDY

2023-08-04 12:44

1 reply

DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN THERE'S AFKN CAT OUTSIDE! youtube.com/watch?v=N_COP5clGzw

2023-08-04 14:00

Best change from valve in forever (not counting game updates ofc)

2023-08-03 20:07

Finally huge W. Now the clown fest that is blast tournaments will be over. Blast production+Meritocracy=potentially the best tournaments. Esl still have all the best teams anyway.

2023-08-03 20:08

6 replies

orgs are already struggling to stay afloat, if valve doesn't put more money into esports it is certain that some orgs might go under because of this change. Idea is a W but in reality has many complicated problems that need to be solved before this change goes live.

2023-08-04 06:25

5 replies

perhaps organizations will ask valve to share more capital to organize the tournament

2023-08-04 11:54

4 replies

yeah i want free competition as well and to end partner teams but some of these partner teams aren't the wealthiest orgs and they rely on these partner programs to make it more profitable so i hope there is a solution

2023-08-04 12:51

3 replies

You don't create business based on handouts, you build it on sound strategy with your on ways to attract investment and be profitable. If these orgs can only survive on valve handouts then maybe they should be allowed to die off.

2023-08-04 19:01

2 replies

Or maybe Valve shouldn't be killing off the scene

2023-08-04 21:35

1 reply

"killing off the scene" room temp iq.

2023-08-04 23:29

Volvo really putting in some work this year, (potentially) great news again

2023-08-03 20:21

This will either end the Counter Strike scene or make it more crowded & competitive. Eitherway, Valve doing the right thing.

2023-08-03 20:47

13 replies

It will definitely change the viewership that CS gets, for better or for worse. But I doubt it will end the scene entirely. As it says in the article, Valve is enforcing a return to the ecosystem that this game built its professional scene from. This is a bad change for viewers that watch tournaments solely by namesake (such as die hard fans of certain names or "casual" viewers), but is great news for the competitive ecosystem, and therefore viewers that want to watch the best CS. There is an point to be made, as has been made in the past, that the system stretches and stresses the players: but isn't that the point of being a top-level professional?

2023-08-03 21:12

11 replies

That is only true if you believe the best teams in the world are secretly not the best teams in the world, and just faking it by keeping some secretly super teams out of the "closed" league. I just don't buy this theory. The current top teams are the best of the best already.

2023-08-03 22:02

9 replies

"I just don't buy this theory. The current top teams are the best of the best already." flag + flair how ironic :D

2023-08-03 22:18

1 reply

Your comment makes no fucking sense. Astralis, Heroic and Danish CSGO is literally proving my point. They're farming the best talent of Denmark, to make their main team better. Not staying in T1 because they pay for spots.

2023-08-04 20:30

Which is why every major have no cinderella stories and upsets. Your argument holds true for the absolute top of the teams, but it isn't nearly true for the majority of them. Take EG for an example, do you really think they are the best and deserve a slot at every BLAST and ESL event? BiG and complexity? Are they good enough in your eyes? There are plenty of teams out there who aren't partner teams and would more than match up to them. No partner teams means the orgs can't get complacent and stop putting effort into their teams if they want to attend the big events, that is a win for everyone except those who cheer for the few teams who can't qualify.

2023-08-04 00:02

6 replies

I stopped reading when you talked about top teams and EG in the same sentence. Who cares if Vitality, G2, Cloud9, Navi, Heroic etc stomp on EG/CoL/BIG, or some other no-name shit team? The upsets are easy to explain, and you could easily argue for and against it. The argument against it imo is that the no-name teams have the advantage of being hard to prepare for. And often they get shit on again, once the top teams can prepare for them. The argument for it, could be something like that top CS should just adapt to the unpredictable kind of CS that the no-name teams bring. If you honestly think that the top 5 teams get complacent, then you have no fucking idea how insanely competitive they are.

2023-08-04 20:35

5 replies

And you completely missed the point and your reply is completely delusional. This has nothing to do with the top 5 teams, I said so specifically. It has to do with shit teams having a guaranteed spot when they'd not be able to qualify on their own merit. No partners, no such scenario. No matter how much you wish to argue for some other point I didn't even touch on. "Your argument holds true for the absolute top of the teams", I literally even half agreed with you until your autism kicked in.

2023-08-04 20:51

4 replies

I still don't see how the bad partner teams somehow ruin anything? If there werent any infrastructure making it possible for young talents to make it, then I would agree 100% with you. My comment is not delusional, you just don't get it. I'm not saying one solution is bad. It sounds like you're completely misunderstanding me. I'm literally just trying to point out the good and the bad of both solutions.

2023-08-04 21:04

3 replies

The problem isn't them ruining anything. The whole idea of partner team and franchise leagues too for that matter is to funnel some of the profits into those teams to finance their operations. When that happens you should expect that money to be spent on those teams being as good as they can possibly be. So I will ask again, do you feel teams like EG for example have lived up to that based on the business model they have gotten themselves involved in? If they are unwilling to invest that money towards such an outcome, be that investing in proven players or up and coming ones doesn't matter. The simple fact is, that model only works if everyone works towards the end goal of the league being as competitive as possible. Will Vitality or Heroic qualify for any event and keep their status right now if this change came in right away? Of course they would because they are actually good. Are there teams that absolutely don't belong in there and take up spots by having them locked up to a partnership spot? Yes, there are. That's why there is a problem with the current system and it has very little to do with the absolute top teams at all. Your reply was delusional as you couldn't read the difference between me agreeing with you that the top teams would get there anyway and teams like EG doesn't belong there. You took it as if I'm saying EG is a top team when I literally said they don't belong.

2023-08-04 21:15

2 replies

What you're saying is happening, could also be seen as a net profit for the entire scene. If big teams can secure exposure, that means they become worth more for advertisers. More advertising money into CS = better for the entire scene. When the big teams have more money, they pay more for upcoming talents. If T2/T3 teams can't make big money on selling talents, they can't stay alive. Low tier teams have upset top5 teams before, so what exactly is your point? And a whole other perspective is that it will be super draining for the top teams to have to qualify for everything. I agree with you regarding shitty teams locking in some spots, but I also see why it's very difficult for them to figure out where to draw the line. How many teams should be partnered then? And is the problem partnered teams, or TOO MANY partnered teams? There's much more to this than just saying "EG bad".

2023-08-04 21:23

1 reply

There is no need for partner teams if they all rely on Valve's ranking as it seems they will do. If an org keeps paying for those new players you mentioned to stay at the top of the rankings it changes nothing for them. If they don't, then they drop off and get replaced by someone who might do that. You could also argue that the partner teams are a good thing but the system would need restructuring to put pressure on them to stay at the top to maintain their status. As it is though, Valve is doing the right thing, at any point could the TOs put pressure on their partner teams to invest if they wish to keep their spots, they never did. Valve steps in to put an end to it. Problem solved.

2023-08-04 21:30

Deffinetly will be better, cuz even if ur fan of a team that wont play all the time its still a win. Good luck watching every tournament, every game, i have free time and cant do it cuz its too much imagine if u also have to work or do other stuff.

2023-08-03 22:33

partnered tournaments have been eroding other games' professional scenes for a while now, im happy to see it nipped in the bud

2023-08-06 21:18

FINNALY A WWWWWWWWIN

2023-08-03 23:30

finally

2023-08-03 19:32

yay, get the garbage teams like EG out

2023-08-03 19:33

3 replies

2023-08-03 20:22

finnaly

2023-08-03 23:30

2023-08-05 21:18

Bye bye nip and OG

2023-08-03 19:33

3 replies

EG too

2023-08-03 19:46

1 reply

We'll still see them on the NA events as long as there's not too many Brazilian teams

2023-08-03 19:55

rip nip

2023-08-03 20:02

based

2023-08-03 19:33

WHY ??????

2023-08-03 19:33

19 replies

Because Majors has less wiews due to tier 2 upseting a lot of tier 1 teams. Only tryhard fans like to watch teams that are T2 or not know but casuals will not watch new teams they never heard of in major quater like apes and GL.

2023-08-03 19:41

15 replies

Isn't this the total opposite of what will happen? More t2 teams to emerge all year from t1 events, and thus having more experience to play t1 teams in major qualifiers?

2023-08-03 19:45

13 replies

Period of adjustment could be long tho

2023-08-03 19:51

The good players on tier 2 teams would replace the bad players on tier 1 teams, and the good tier 2 teams would replace bad tier 1 teams. basically the upsets happen not because the majors are unfair, but because they are fair, and the reveal a truth otherwise hidden by pay to win tournaments. Where teams get more money from having popular well known players than having good players and winning.

2023-08-03 21:28

11 replies

Well yes exactly, isn't this more fun to watch than EG vs complexity? Or OG vs BIG? It seems to me that the ecosystem becomes more and more fair and competitive, i don't get why people complain about it

2023-08-03 22:02

1 reply

This was 100% my thoughts too. I absolutely love this change and think its exactly what needed to be done. Just wish they would have started it now.

2023-08-04 01:42

nah major is just trash format and seeding, if t2 teams were able to beat t1 teams that easily and consistently then they would always make deep runs in tournaments like cologne or katowice, but they never do. when was the last time you have seen a gamerlegion or a apeks in the playoffs of a non-major tournament? never

2023-08-04 00:27

8 replies

And how tf do you expect them to make deep runs when there's no open qualifiers for them to be there? As some said above, major's system shows more or less the reality, the line between tier 1 and 2 has almost faded

2023-08-04 02:07

3 replies

uhh thats what play-ins are for? i

2023-08-04 11:26

2 replies

And play in teams are decided by ESL ranking

2023-08-04 21:43

1 reply

yes and most teams are not partnered teams

2023-08-04 21:58

name checks out

2023-08-04 11:18

they do make deep run. the 1 or 2 of them that win the open qualifiers regularly do good. something they crash and burn cause of the pressure. when we get less dogshit teams and gave more spots to open qualifiers, by chance more of them will make deep runs, get over their lan jitters, and move on to become tier1 pushing the dogshit teams away. dont u find it wierd only teams that are truely hopeless and dogshit like EG do bad despite invites? shouldnt there be a scale from EG to top 3 teams. There is. teams like liquid, astralis, furia, big, mouz. They are not completely dogshit and hopeless like EG, so despite at times for the last 3 years being significantly worse than teams left out, they get their lan and tier 1 experience that they paid for, and they turn it into making a decent argument as top 20 or top 10 teams. like realy do you belive there are blatant spot stealers like EG and then there are good tier 1 teams that deserve their spot, and nothing in between?

2023-08-04 23:12

2 replies

of course there are the teams in between trash like eg and t1 teams, but what im saying is people are overexaggerating how good t2 actually is nowadays. the major format is just simply made for upsets to happen, 2 bo1s in the same day is asking for upsets to happen, even pros say themselves that the format is dogshit and it makes worse teams do much better

2023-08-05 00:19

1 reply

theese tier 2 teams have to do a lot more than a couple bo1 upsets to make it to playoffs like they have seem to do a lot recently.

2023-08-05 11:27

yes and no. people only tuned out because teams that were on paper Tier2 were there. if every tournament was like the major ,which is what Valve are trying, and it's open, more teams like Apeks and GL will get deeper runs when before they have 0.00001% to even make it there, and as such, more viewers will be acceptable of such teams making deep runs

2023-08-03 19:57

So that shit teams like EG don't have more opportunitys just because they are partner team. Now teams like C9 can have a chance isntead who 100% should have the spot over them. Or well at least for Blast don't know how it will work for ESL

2023-08-03 19:44

2 replies

NIP are screwed too

2023-08-03 19:53

1 reply

NIP is a big org. Either they disband by 2025 or they will have made a competitive roster. I mean we are still far away

2023-08-03 19:55

2023-08-03 19:33

BYE BYE FUCKIN EVIL GENIUSES BYE BYE

2023-08-03 19:33

2 replies

+1 eg csgo disband now

2023-08-04 06:29

Celebrating that there will be 0 NA teams ? Or maybe they are the best in NA and will still play ?

2023-08-04 06:46

common Gaben W

2023-08-03 19:33

1 reply

1 gaben is the goat

2023-08-03 20:07

this. is. CRAZY

2023-08-03 19:33

T1 and t2 will get mixed up real good now

2023-08-03 19:33

2 replies

Yeah and can't wait for that. Like what if suddenly like G2 (just an example) start regularly not make it to those blasts and so on. I wonder how this change will strengthen smaller tournament like Elisa or Pinnacle Cup, if more big names will be there or something

2023-08-03 23:14

1 reply

It will bring some dynamic to the game, because top scene will be made up of objectively best performing teams at the current moment. T1 deadweights will get a reality check, while promising t2 might get more direct chances. T2 tournaments will probably get more popular and hopefully better

2023-08-03 23:40

Huge W

2023-08-03 19:34

I USED TO PRAY FOR TIMES LIKE THESE

2023-08-03 19:34

good fuck partnered leagues bye eg

2023-08-03 19:34

rip eg

2023-08-03 19:34

AT LAST

2023-08-03 19:35

Huge

2023-08-03 19:35

HUGE W

2023-08-03 19:35

Good job valve!

2023-08-03 19:35

Thank you Valve. Nobody needs more franchising and closed circuits like the absolute shitshow that is happening in other esports (valorant)

2023-08-03 19:37

great news for everyone except the corrupt

2023-08-03 19:35

Big W based Gabe

2023-08-03 19:35

Now Valve Will surely raise the prize pools right?

2023-08-03 19:35

3 replies

They have to.

2023-08-03 19:36

Does Valve contribute anything to prize pools at all?

2023-08-03 23:09

1 reply

For majors yes

2023-08-04 02:18

Valve made Blast great again

2023-08-03 19:35

Fat L from Valve. not being involved is what made CS so fuckin successful, leave the game alone!

2023-08-03 19:35

12 replies

Its their game? Also this is a good change

2023-08-03 19:55

5 replies

iT's ThEiR gAmE VOLVO has given literally zero fucks about the actual game and it's development.

2023-08-03 21:19

4 replies

Cs2 doesnt exist i guess

2023-08-03 23:20

3 replies

Don't see it in my library so yeah doesn't exist confirmed by steam

2023-08-04 02:05

Just because CS2 is in beta doesn't mean they care idiot. The point was that they needed to fix the issues players have been facing for almost 2 decades now. They are seriously underdelivering on that. People like you are the reason they get away with it. So glad about Volvo doing the bare minimum. See how Riot resolved almost every issue of CS in a few years and VOLVO can't do shit in 2 decades.

2023-08-04 12:25

1 reply

Then go play Valorant

2023-08-04 21:45

Yeah so Blast and ESL tried to become regulators. They made their own closed tournaments similar to what people like you don't want. This is Valve coming in to preserve the open nature of the competitive scene. You should want this.

2023-08-03 19:59

3 replies

dont even try explaining he was born british and is a fnatic fan in 2023 he probably has some mental issues

2023-08-03 20:06

1 reply

smooya alt

2023-08-05 19:23

"Valve are opening the scene by forbidding freedom of association" is the most doublethink I have ever heard

2023-08-03 20:39

This is something everyone has been wanting for the past 2 years

2023-08-03 20:49

you are very burro

2023-08-08 18:47

final nail in the coffin, gj valve.

2023-08-03 19:36

Finally, good job valve

2023-08-03 19:36

RIPS EG,OG,NIP,BIG

2023-08-03 19:36

1 reply

Big and NIP always had decent results. No prob if they going to open qualifiers. But for og and EG it’s could be hard.

2023-08-03 19:53

Goood :) Rip EG

2023-08-03 19:36

1 reply

rofl

2023-08-03 19:45

the events will be so bad lmao

2023-08-03 19:37

14 replies

why? Do you know what the qualification for the blast tournament is like? You have to go through several qualifiers to enter a tier 1 tournament because there is 1 slot.Do you know how qualification for the ESL Pro League works? You have to advance from the esea premier to the Esl Conference where other teams are invited and from those teams a few advance.There will no longer be such a thing as Evil Geniuses which is in last place in every tournament and they are tragic and they are only in the tournament because they are a rich organization.

2023-08-03 19:41

13 replies

even tho esl/blast events had far from perfect qualification system, or even sometimes bad, valve has proven over the last few majors, that their seeding/qualification system is far worse than those of blast/esl, so no matter how bad in ur opinion are qualies right now, no worries thanks to valve they will be worse, based on what they were doing, but lets leave it at that, it still is not the main problem why tournaments will be bad Without partner system, the TO will have very little amount of funds to run tournaments to make a profit, if a profit is even possible, that said some of these things will happen then: -production will be worse than ever before, due to lack of money -talent will have to take pay cuts, which will lead to losing some of the best casters, analysts, etc. -there will be no money to make content outside of matches of course that is all based on the current situation, valve can give money to TOs to make it work, but i doubt it

2023-08-03 19:57

12 replies

This is wrong, all the major does it prove that the gap between tier 1 and tier 2 is super small, and if these non-partner teams would get more chances like the open qualifiers in other tournaments, i am sure they would break in tier1 like they do at majors. and other teams like people have meantioned like EG and OG, will have a tougher time qualifying, because they are just not as good.

2023-08-03 19:59

11 replies

all the major does it proves that the seeding does not take into account the present level of teams, lets give example for it, lets say g2 has won all tournaments in last 6 months, but they didnt qualify to the previous major, on the other hand lets say we have bne who qualified for that major but they didnt qualify for single of the tournaments g2 won. Based on previous majors we can clearly tell that bne objectively being a worse team than g2 have objectively easier time to qualify than g2 because they have easier opponents to play than g2 in first match. Now lets say scenarios like this happen multiple times(and it happened, group A and group B from previous major are a proof) u end up having objectively worse teams in main stage over better teams, because they didnt have to play good teams to get there, simple as that btw, u missed the second part of my point and that was my main point, dont really care that much about qualies if we can maintain this level of TOs

2023-08-03 20:29

10 replies

Obviously it has nothing to do with the fact that teams like G2 can present a total shit show of a form on one/several events and then just go in the interview "we will focus on the next one 2 weeks from now" like it's another day in the office. Even better, some of those players say that they really are not focusing on this tournament that much. No shit, you are invited to all of them. No serious consequences except for few fans raging and hating. Same goes for Astralis that was kept in the loop for much longer than it should, so painfully long that they actually started to play better, changing 45 players in between. OBVIOUSLY it has nothing to do with T2 teams that after going through absolute hell online, get to play on LAN against T1 teams for in total of 6 games and then losing and going out of the loop for next 7 months. Motivation and financial aspect OBVIOUSLY has nothing to do with that either. Not like 9INE mynio just said that they did not have a psychologist up until they actually managed to stay in a loop for a while.

2023-08-03 20:54

9 replies

This is exactly what I meant! all the non-partner teams have to grind shitty online and small LANs for scraps, and hope they are one of 1000000000000000000 teams to qualify for the big tournaments, all partnered teams have to do is be partnered and voila, already at the MAIN event...

2023-08-03 21:14

why are u answering to my comment when u cant answer a siingle of my points, peace dude, i aint playiing the game for me to destroying every single of ur points when u ignore all of mine

2023-08-03 23:56

7 replies

What there is to comment about? You are wrong. We had better tournaments before partnership era with better prize pools as well. You can't be serious thinking that 16 Partner teams basically pay for whole tournament. What they did is money making machine for them since all Partner teams share the revenue from each tournament. Since they have spot, they are practically quarantee stable income. Even if the Partnership costs them it's all calculated in a manner that quarantee positive balance at the end of the year. Since ESL and Blast are the only TO's that matter right now they can set up whole circuits which basically looks the same, feels the same, have the same teams and players and are boring as fuck. Please read into that before you speak: pro.eslgaming.com/csgo/proleague/wp-cont.. Apart from a few good initiatives, it is an exclusivity document. I could be out for 2 years without watching a single match from ESL / Blast tournament, I get back and it looks, feels and sounds the same. Or maybe what you mean by high quality is exclusive "games" and "interviews" where players draw shit on paper and laugh for 20 seconds or make "who likes chocolate ice creams on the team?" type of shit video. Yea, it is really worth it. Just to see the same faces and teams for next 5 years, where community is basically bored to death wondering if they get paid to scream at each other, because it really has nothing to do with players really competing - why would they? They always have next tournament. ;)

2023-08-04 10:19

6 replies

"We had better tournaments before partnership era with better prize pools as well." if what u are talking about is true, why there are almost no tech pauses right now, players never complain about pc, teams have enough money for practice rooms, which they couldnt afford before, TOs pays for everything the ppl involved in the event need? if u talk shit like this acting like these problems werent a part of every single tournament in the past and money didnt help reduce them u simply didnt see a single tournament past the partnership era. "where community is basically bored to death wondering if they get paid to scream at each other, because it really has nothing to do with players really competing - why would they? They always have next tournament" well thats literally subjective since there is no way to prove what impacts the viewership of tournaments, but either way if its only gets better, how do u go into conclusion thats its boring? sounds like u are the prolem here, peace

2023-08-04 11:37

5 replies

"if what u are talking about is true, why there are almost no tech pauses right now, players never complain about pc, teams have enough money for practice rooms, which they couldnt afford before, TOs pays for everything the ppl involved in the event need?" Of course we had problems like that, but years before Partnership programs started they were a minority. I'm not sure what tournaments you're talking about and from what time period these events have had such serious "technical problems". You still have tech pauses now. Literally at Cologne as well. They are handled superbly tho and I'm not denying that things are solved now more smoothly. As well as quality of production uplift. However as Carmac said it is mostly related to experience of teams handling these events, tech improvments and lastly the money itself. Plus if you are doing all the events the same, how it can fail except for actual hardware issue? On top of that can you provide me with any data that indicates % of money delivered by Partner teams that is directly related to the things you mentioned? Do you know how much money TO's would lose without Partnership program? Do you know where that money goes? As far as I can tell first Season of ELEAUGE in 2016 (!) was broadcasted through American TV, we had fucking Shaq roasting with Thorin and 1.4 mil $ in prize pool then (which makes it about 1.8 mil $ now) for a NON MAJOR EVENT. No Partner teams needed. I don't know what type of practice rooms you are talking about - during event or outside of event? Because there is not enough funding outside events for T2 teams and any relevant tournament is stacked already leaving few spots for qualification. Money is going in the same circle, rarely going out of it to improve overall scene. Exactly because of that Valve decided to do what they did. "well thats literally subjective since there is no way to prove what impacts the viewership of tournaments, but either way if its only gets better, how do u go into conclusion thats its boring? sounds like u are the prolem here, peace" Well you are right. It is subjective and in my subjective view I can see big outburst of community members making posts on reddit and hltv saying how happy they are to get rid of Partnership program. So yeah, I'm at peace with that.

2023-08-04 17:16

4 replies

"As far as I can tell first Season of ELEAUGE in 2016 (!) was broadcasted through American TV, we had fucking Shaq roasting with Thorin and 1.4 mil $ in prize pool then (which makes it about 1.8 mil $ now) for a NON MAJOR EVENT. No Partner teams needed." Let's see how many teams qualified through qualifiers. 1/24. 23 invited teams. Nice, TO picking who gets to play their tournaments and who doesn't

2023-08-04 21:55

3 replies

Yes, and there is a difference between being invited and being a Partner team. Main one: invitation are nearly almost given based on results. EDIT: Plus my point was that such good tournament with such enrichment in a matter of production was managed without Partnertship buyins. So if we put ourselves back in time there would be no team like current EG on that tournament.

2023-08-04 23:46

2 replies

Yes there would, ELeague invited bunch of teams including NA teams worst of which were #43 and #47 Complexity and Echo Fox which result wise had no reason to be in 1.4m dollar event

2023-08-05 00:10

1 reply

Fair point, forgot it was NA based tournament. Doesn't change the fact that no "partner teams" or "buyin's" were needed for amazing tournament to take place. In all honesty what you pointed out just proves my point.

2023-08-05 00:48

Awesome! Can't wait to see the lower ranked/non partnered teams show what they are capable of in bigger tournaments.

2023-08-03 19:37

1 reply

2023-08-03 19:41

imgur.com/gallery/mdxCqiK

2023-08-03 19:37

Nice

2023-08-03 19:37

This is huge.

2023-08-03 19:37

Absolutely love it so this dumb blast will finally have good teams instead of shit ones like EG playing forever

2023-08-03 19:38

1 reply

They ruined it with their shitty group stage and showdown crap. If it were slightly more open Valve wouldnt have done shit

2023-08-03 19:41

Awesome change! I had already lost interest in the scene, but this is nice.

2023-08-03 19:39

Best thing Valve has done for CS in years. Too bad it isn't until 2025, but I guess it makes sense to give the TOs and teams time to adjust.

2023-08-03 19:39

GigaChad Valve!

2023-08-03 19:39

Finally tournaments only for those who earn their spots through blood and sweat, even top orgs will have to bleed and put effort now to stay relevant common Gabe W

2023-08-03 19:39

1 reply

+1 this is a great change

2023-08-03 20:00

2023-08-03 19:39

More matches to watch is great and all but mixed feelings with valve making changes to a pro scene they have no contribution on

2023-08-03 19:40

2 replies

yes valve has no contribution whatsoever!!!!11! it's not like they provide infrastructure!!!1!

2023-08-04 00:27

1 reply

By infrastructure you mean the game itself? Valve doesn't provide the servers, admins, IT, production, venue, equipment, talent, prize money, etc. It's good to get rid of partner teams, but it does feel a little weird for Valve to let ESL and Blast basically build the pro scene, and then swoop in and start making rules.

2023-08-04 01:07

I uderstand people's excitement but will it not hurt TOs too much?

2023-08-03 19:40

5 replies

+1 also worried about that

2023-08-03 19:40

You mean the Saudi billionaires? nah, I don't think it will matter a lot to them

2023-08-03 19:54

ESL have been putting on open CS tournaments for 16 years, and they’re propped up by the Saudi Arabian Savvy Gaming Group. They’ll be absolutely fine

2023-08-03 19:58

1 reply

Yeah and Blast is supported by the Danish government. It'll hurt, but I'm sure they'll still be fine.

2023-08-03 20:04

+1 and teams, too. No guaranteed income means less opportunity to take risks and spend money. It's gonna be hella hard to justify a dedicated practice facility for teams that end up only qualifying for a couple tournaments a year, for example.

2023-08-03 23:07

Huge for lower ranked teams- but i'm concerned for the economic impact this will have on the tier 1 orgs. Revenue sharing was probably a big source of funding.

2023-08-03 19:40

6 replies

a good start would be cutting players paycheck

2023-08-03 20:29

5 replies

nobody will play for bowl of rice

2023-08-03 21:41

no, player salaries in tier 1 are actually one of the strong points of CS. one of the rare industries where workers are paid a good wage and actually have power in their employment rather than scrounging by and having to desperately sign predatory contracts just for a paycheck.

2023-08-03 23:34

3 replies

Comment is likely referring to the salaries of players being overinflated for their value creation to their org. There is a difference between less pay (30k/month to 18k/month, for example) and underpaying what someone should be paid. Edit: also important to note that a lot of players don't really bring value to an org, this is an area lots of players need to become better at.

2023-08-04 01:17

yeah bro players who dont generate any revenue deserve 10k/month

2023-08-04 15:42

1 reply

Then sign a player for 5k/month

2023-08-04 21:58

bye EG

2023-08-03 19:41

Good, to stay relevant you will need more than just money rn

2023-08-03 19:41

This is so fucking good, finally valve stepped up

2023-08-03 19:41

RIP EG

2023-08-03 19:41

Gaben has been awaken from his sleep, we`re in the end game now. sidenote : this will also mean that unless Valve`s system is very much similar to that of HLTV, HLTV`s rankings are gonna be obsolete moving forward in 2025.

2023-08-03 19:43

1 reply

Majors and even ESL run tournaments have relied on their own rankings for a while now and they very often differ a lot from HLTV rankings - I don't get why people mention this as anything relevant.

2023-08-04 06:23

2023-08-03 19:42

Nice! NIP will still be top 1. EZ WIN

2023-08-03 19:42

Valve = GOATED

2023-08-03 19:42

very bad decision, who cares about noname teams? just kick partner teams like eg and it will be fine

2023-08-03 19:43

24 replies

So if an org like FaZe signed random 5 lvl10s you would watch them because its faze and you have no problem with that, but you would totally hate apeks and monte and other good team to have more chances to play big tournaments instead of partnered team right?

2023-08-03 19:47

19 replies

where is logic? show me atleast 1 team that isnt partner but has famous players?(except c9 for blast)

2023-08-03 20:00

18 replies

VP? Last Major winner.. And on the other hand we have EG at Blast with a team that is top 500

2023-08-03 20:07

5 replies

yeah, but vp is bad even for partner team, they are a little bit better than eg

2023-08-03 20:17

4 replies

Do you remember Polish VP at the end they got still invites for top events (without partner things) for over a year and they became the last of 95% of those tournaments. They destroyed so much work of other teams that might improve the tournament and worked hard to be there. You can say you want always the "stars" on a tournament tht is okay if you love close circus as USA love them. I mean it doesnt matter that the BULLS are compelelty shit for decades now. But if you want real competition and the "best" on a tournament you need to destroy the partner and close circus system.

2023-08-03 20:23

3 replies

Maybe i wasnt correct but i want to watch partner teams that play good cs. ofc operators have to kick teams like eg/og look at Cologne 2023: we had 4 non partner-noname teams that didnt show anything(only gl but probably that was fluke)

2023-08-03 20:34

2 replies

maybe you didnt read it, but article states, that TOs will use ranking system, which means strong teams will always get invites

2023-08-03 21:43

1 reply

thats nice

2023-08-03 22:48

2023-08-03 20:07

you clearly dont understand, doesnt matter how bad partnered teams play and that there are way better teams, the bad partnered team (like eg, og...) will always stay in top10/top20 and you will always know those players because the will play every single tournament. If now one of the partnered teams decide to kick their roster and sign 5x 16yo no namer kid, they would still play in every big tournament because the ORG is partnered. Imagine now if S1mple left to play in Apeks, Niko would left to play in Monte, etc etc, those teams with your superstars (apeks, monte or other teams) would not play in those big events because a team like EG has a slot because its a partnered team. A team like Nip or navi or any other team can go trough big ass slumps, lose everything, every single match past last 4 months and they would still play in every big event even tho there are like 30 other teams that could beat them and would deserve the spot more they that partnered team does. Clearly you dont understand. And everyone was a no namer once. With your mentality just call shox, guardian, getright, forest, olof, friberg, fcking zeus back to t1 since they are not no namers so you would enjoy watching them even tho there are people like m0nesy hiding in t2 because they aint geting any chance in big tournaments because theres like 1 slot for 50 teams to qualify

2023-08-03 20:10

btw if other teams then partnered are no namers for you then I get it, you dont know how good some other teams are and only think that their major runs are "flukes" meanwhile past last 2 majors your partnered "famous" teams couldnt even qualify/got destroyed in group stage

2023-08-03 20:16

9 replies

i know tier 2-3 teams, most of them are bad, who wants to watch them? Ofc i dont want to watch eg or og cuz they are bad and dont show good cs for years, but i would rather watch faze vs navi than the mongols vs b8(and 99% of viewers would do it too) "If now one of the partnered teams decide to kick their roster and sign 5x 16yo no namer kid, they would still play in every big tournament because the ORG is partnered. " you know it cant happen, no one will do it, but even if it becomes true then organisation can kick this team And what about major? Yes, these fluke runs like apeks or gl, they didnt do anything before major. yeah, you can say 'but they arent partner team'. So? There are still a lot of qualifications for non blast events

2023-08-03 20:27

8 replies

1. You would still watch teams like navi c9 g2 vita, I have no doubt they would qualify for all the other events, but other teams like nip eg big would have to step up because teams like 9ine and monte are clearly better atm, and we would see even more new teams and developed players, it will just make skill ceiling highier, t1 scene will be stronger. RN a team like nip can play poorly for a year, go trough many changes lose big shot ton of matches and still be highier ranked then a team like monte who has much highier win% and have better possibility to make deep runs you wont lose your c9 navi faze vita matchups, but you will not watch big get destryed every tournament with a team that couldnt even win a cash cup You call apeks a fluke but if you wstch them they deserve to play in big tournament and are actually putting up better fight to teams like g2 then for example big can After the partnered teams are over, you will get much better wating experience, since a team like 9ine will give c9 much harder matchup then EG a big tournaments just get filled woth teams that deserve to be there

2023-08-03 20:35

6 replies

so why apeks took 9-12th place at Cologne? Where their quarterfinal(at least) at some tier 1 event before major? ofc i dont want to watch big get destroyed every tournament but noname team will play like big too You r saying 9ine and monte are better than nip, but its not true(especially about 9ine), if you are better than eg it means nothing cuz they are the worst team and i wouldnt say big is clearly worse than monte/9ine If these tier 3 teams are so good then why they cant get top 5-8 at few tier 1 events?

2023-08-03 20:47

5 replies

okay u r lost, just enjoy watching your partnered shit show while you can

2023-08-03 20:52

4 replies

its better than watching forze vs tyloo

2023-08-03 20:59

3 replies

whos saying tyloo or forze can qualify

2023-08-03 21:00

2 replies

they can have fluke runs at qualifications

2023-08-03 21:06

1 reply

If u r a team like faze or navi or g2 or vita you should have no problem with any t2/t3 team, there aint gonna be so many fluke runs as atm, the scene is heavily splitted into partnered teams and other teams, partnered team only play each other, their meta between them is not developing as much as the meta and strats in t2/t3 so no when a good t2 team plays a t1 partnered team, they use starts that the partnered team dont know - he has no reason to know them because he is only playing other partnered teams, if this goes on more and more you gonna have many potential t1 teams outside of the closed ciruit and the partnered teams will go downhill with their skill and strats but once you implement open qualss, the t1 teams will have to adapt and if they do, they aint gonna have problem to qualify, but if a team like nip ego og big cant adapt and they will keep getting gestroyed then they just shouldnt be in those tournaments lets see it this way - navi liquid c9 mouz vita heroic g2 will always qualify and the other spots will cycle each turnament between teams like falcons, 9ine, vp (which is a t1 and should be in those tournaments), monte, gamerlogion, apeks and maybe big og nip eg so you see, you will always get your t1 teams, but the other spots should not be locked for teams like eg, thats not healtly, the competetive scene will develop more, you will still have big names in the finals but you will see a new better contenders at tournaments so what if each big tournament there will be some fluke runs from t2 teams and as a result,, nip wont qualify for 5 big events in a row, you gonna blame valve for making nip look bad? I mean, its their bad they cant qualify 5 times in a row, they should be good. And many people assume "whose gonna watch falcons vs gmaerlegion grand final of a 500K tournamnet" - noone because it aint gonna happend fluke runs at last 2 major happened because t2 teams cant get into any other big event except major, because only major has big open quallies, so t1 teams play agains team which play different meta and only focus on major because its only tournament where they have a fair playground to gualify, but once there are open quallies for other big tournaments we gonna have our good old major finals back

2023-08-03 21:59

"That would never happen and you could just kick that team" No, you can't. That is literally what "being partnered" means. You cannot be kicked as long as you actually field a team. You would need very specific written contracts to get a "bad team" out. Because...what is a bad team? I think the NALCS in LoL had a rule that when a franchise finishes three times in a row on last place they would get kicked out, but I don't know if that rule is still in tact. Pretty sure though that it actually never happened. So what? A "bad team" gets kicked out of your tournament when they finish last x-times in a row? Aww, to bad, in their second to last try they finished one place above that, well, can't do anything about it. And if you implement a point-ranking...then you already dropped the partner-concept.

2023-08-03 20:48

stfu

2023-08-03 19:52

1 reply

why so aggressive

2023-08-03 20:01

there will be more dropouts than just eg and og :) JUST WATCH

2023-08-03 20:00

1 reply

yeah, most of the partnered teams will be in trouble, they aint used to play as much officials as t2 grinders, also t2 cs rn looks a little bit different in terms of pace and tactics, many partnered team will have to adapt. We could see the pace of some plays GL was making at the major, they were cathing so many partnered team offguard with siuhys fast calls and acors no-respect peaks

2023-08-03 20:13

EG, BIG and OG in shambles

2023-08-03 19:43

It shouldn't be any of their business?

2023-08-03 19:44

11 replies

why not ? these TOs are running tournaments of a game that Valve made, they need to get license in order to run these events and Valve has the right to put in the terms and conditions for this license usage.

2023-08-03 19:49

7 replies

>they need to get license in order to run these events This is dumb as hell IMO. Do you need a license to host a football or basketball tournament? Then why should you need one to host a CS tournament? Ultimately it is still a closed system, just one run by Valve instead of ESL/Blast. Their plans look fair and promising so far, BUT where we used to have two competing circuits we will now essentially have just one with no competition, so there's definitely potential for abuse.

2023-08-03 23:17

6 replies

>Do you need a license to host a football or basketball tournament? are you sure i`m being the dumb one here lol ? Does anybody out there actually owns the right or is considered as a founder of football or basketball as opposed to CSGO being a product made by a group of people ? Do you have any idea what an IP is supposed to mean ? expected dumb take from that flag. Please dont comment further to embarrass yourself even more, your like is the one that brings shame to your people.

2023-08-03 23:22

5 replies

So quick to take offense lol. I didn't call you dumb, I called the IP laws dumb. The owner of a product should be able to do whatever they want with it. If I buy a bunch of cars from Toyota, I should be able to use them however I want, including to host a race/tournament. If I buy a bunch of copies of a game from Valve, I should be able to use them however I want, including hosting a tournament.

2023-08-04 00:01

4 replies

i really am not gonna take anything from you seriously after that shit of a take mate, i think i told you to piss off and dont bother to be a clown anymore. get educated , than speak. >The owner of a product should be able to do whatever they want with it ye thats Valve with product being CS and they are doing what they want with it. What a doofus.

2023-08-04 00:06

3 replies

fortunately it's a public forum and people can decide for themselves which of us has the worse takes :) (also it would be 'then' speak - normally I wouldn't correct a non-native English speaker, but when your whole point is about education...)

2023-08-04 00:09

2 replies

keep babbling mate , no one`s listening to you . again , please read up on what IP is and the laws surrounding it are and speak when you are acknowledged. Valve is by no means in the wrong here.

2023-08-04 00:11

Pakistan wins: knock out

2023-08-04 00:32

cs is not a football, which is our cultural heritage, but their own game, they can do what they want

2023-08-03 21:49

2 replies

it's just petty

2023-08-03 22:07

1 reply

no its not.

2023-08-03 23:23

Great news!

2023-08-03 19:44

Gaben based

2023-08-03 19:44

W, fricking finally

2023-08-03 19:45

common valve W

2023-08-03 19:45

Amazing news, finally most tournaments will have the best teams for once.

2023-08-03 19:47

1 reply

Ironic flair lol (mine too, to be fair)

2023-08-04 00:58

Thank god, now teams will actually have to earn their spots (crazy idea ikr)

2023-08-03 19:46

The big question is will the organisers get rid of BO1s to ensure the best teams make deep runs? This would keep viewership high and avoid sponsorship funding declines, or it might improve sponsorship deals should viewership increase. Good move valve. It'll bring quality matches back to tournaments and avoid low quality partners being stomped repeatedly

2023-08-03 19:53

4 replies

This is a good question, for me the early qualifiers for majors that teams noone even heard of are there can remain bo1 (except maybe decider matches at the end) but after the first swiss system comes into play, having only bo3 would probably be the best way to go about this

2023-08-03 20:01

well, from the last 2 majors, it looks like partnered big team are having harder time in bo3s then bo1s :D in Rio, FaZe won their 2 bo1s, but then lost 3 bo3 :D

2023-08-03 20:20

2 replies

That was in Paris. In Rio FaZe lost bo1 against C9 and Vitality and then bo3 against BNE, which while inexcusable shows just how terrible major formats are (death to bo1s).

2023-08-03 23:14

1 reply

I will speak about major format once the pertnered teams are over and ranking are not inflated by partnerships

2023-08-03 23:16

common gaben W

2023-08-03 19:47

Fundamentally, I agree whole heartedly with this exchange. On the flip side, due to basic human nature of putting money over everything I could see this being detrimental to tournaments and the community overall if it's not handled properly. I hope valve puts some serious dough into prize money, that's the only way this will work.

2023-08-03 19:47

5 replies

I hope they find some way to provide teams ONGOING support. Orgs can't invest in things like practice facilities and player salaries if their only source of income is prize money and sponsorships (which are heavily dependent on results). They need a stable source of income. This change looks good in theory, but there's a legitimate reason things like the NBA, and NFL don't have open qualifiers. Even in the premiere league, at least you're locked in our out for a full season.

2023-08-03 23:24

1 reply

If valve wants to be in control in this fashion then they better pony up the bill. Definitely agree, professional sports developed into what they are for a reason.

2023-08-04 09:11

"if it's not handled properly" Of course it's gonna be a shitshow, what can you even expect from those clowns at Valve? They don't understand the esports part of CS, they never have, which is why majors have been such a shitshow ever since Valve started doing them - terrible formats, scheduling, valve ranking, updates mid tournament/map pool changes right before and other completely asinine ideas (remember map randomizers?). Now Valve just came out of the blue and fucked over TO's that were trying to make this industry at least sustainable if not profitable and were they not owned by oil money this blogpost would've killed the scene outright... Trying to make money in this industry is like drawing blood from a stone. Barely anyone is actually profitable and those that are (like ENCE for example) only do so at the expense of others. Things will be fine, for a while, but VC and sponsorships and gamba alone DON'T and can't cover these loses indefinitely and last time I checked the House of Saud wasn't running their public investment fund as a charity. Not to mention that this is what, 3rd time investors got burned in CS? The CPL shitshow, the global financial crisis and the current economy paired with hostile game dev. How many times do you think they are willing to lose all their money and still go back for more? The money will dry up, cost cutting will come and I'm looking forward to the community having a meltdown at that. I can see only two possible paths forward; PPV or Valve sharing a portion of those hundreds of millions of dollars they make every single month from this game. Neither of which are gonna happen, let's be honest. Most of this entitled community will simply never accept paying for something they were given for free for so long, if Valve even allowed it in the first place and as for Valve itself... well Valve is a company. No one is getting any money from them. Guess we are going back to this

then, with the exception of majors I suppose. It's actually joever, this esport is fucked and the community applauds it. Which would be absolutely hilarious if I didn't care about this game. :')

2023-08-03 23:56

2 replies

2023-08-04 08:30

I was trying to be optimistic but Mr realist had to drop some dimes. Sadly agree with everything you said, let's hope you're wrong.

2023-08-04 09:09

Based Gaben W

2023-08-03 19:47

As a NiP fan I see this as an absolute win. Now NiP will be forced to take proper measures in case they ever want to play t1 tournaments again. No freeloaders anymore.

2023-08-03 19:48

1 reply

same can be said for EG, OG, COL, BIG and the other teams that solely played Tier 1 events due to partnerships. Hopefully the money they spent on these agreements goes into getting better talent for their teams now.

2023-08-03 20:26

wow this is insane. wp valve

2023-08-03 19:48

nice change , now no more EG in tier 1 events

2023-08-03 19:48

Huge W

2023-08-03 19:48

This is great and all but how will valve compensate blast and esl for this? Because they gonna miss huge money without partnership. Or are valve gonna pay the costs? Btw cya EG, BIG, OG and other BOT orgs taking spots from Ence or C9

2023-08-03 19:48

10 replies

why would valve need to compensate them? esl & blast have been running a very lucrative business based on valve's ip e.g. counter-strike. if i was valve and i saw that the whole competitive scene was starting to become monopolized entirely by two companies i'd probably do something about it. if the competitive scene of counter-strike is completely dominated by one or two companies it'll kill the market.

2023-08-03 19:53

7 replies

Because they gonna take even more losses and will eventually pull out. Imagine if esl and blast pulls off. Entire scene dies

2023-08-03 20:19

3 replies

saudi arabian esl will pull out? XD

2023-08-03 21:50

i seriously doubt that. it's like a banking fallacy. if the bank dies we've been convinced by the bank that its the end of days come, because they're somehow now an integral part of the whole-- like the pumping heart of an organism, but really what happens is the bank dies and another bank rises up. at least that's what would happen in a healthy business environment. it's practically a gift to everyone from valve that they're trying to dismantle this blast/esl monopoly.

2023-08-03 22:37

1 reply

yea i hope Valve already have agreements with other TOs to join in 2025 if they abolish Blast/ESL partnership monopoly. But if they dont have anything prepared then the scene may really die lol. Unless ESL takes over and gets all the scene for them with saudi money and only they host tier S tournaments because no other TO is there to compete

2023-08-03 23:00

>esl & blast have been running a very lucrative business idk about ESL, but Blast lost $11,000,000 last year. And the partnership is something like $1-3 million per team, so that loss has the potential to rise to like $30 million if nothing else changes

2023-08-03 23:28

2 replies

i seriously doubt that and even if true it changes nothing. it's just a poorly managed business and should probably just die off.

2023-08-04 01:36

1 reply

source: regnskaber.virk.dk/66447083/amNsb3Vkczov.. Tournaments are the main form of promotion for the game, and Valve gets it for free. ESL and Blast should demand a share of case money, IMHO.

2023-08-04 01:46

they ain't gonna pay shit, it's their game and they have the right to do what they want

2023-08-03 19:54

1 reply

Yep and esl and blast can kill the scene by leaving CS. Enjoy cct and thunderpick tournaments as tier S tournaments with 100k prizepool lmao

2023-08-03 20:20

Event quality with tank but at least it will create fair opportunities.

2023-08-03 19:49

BASED VALVE

2023-08-03 19:49

that's like 50% of the list!

2023-08-03 19:50

Fucking finally, no more inflated ranks due to partener tournaments. Smaller teams no longer have to sell their best players since now they can contend with equal chances. This is the end for teams like EG, coL, Liquid, NiP, OG, BiG

2023-08-03 19:54

1 reply

agreed! before a lot of teams were stuck way below in ranking just because they aren't partner teams and had 0 chances to qualify for certain events. if all events are open, or at least most of them, this will be huge for those team to prove their worth :)

2023-08-03 20:03

huge news, that basically ends tiers in cs mostly.

2023-08-03 19:52

What a massive W

2023-08-03 19:54

Huge W for a competitive ecosystem

2023-08-03 19:54

Those teams that you were calling "fluke" will begone

2023-08-03 19:54

Very good change for competitiveness and finally open qualifiers for large amount of spots, but as always, with Valve Rankings, that they "introduce" and stuff, it might turn to be another joke list, yet lets hope it is not.

2023-08-03 19:55

Thinking not about not Tier 1 events, how is this gonna work for every single Tier 2/3 event? The ones that have 24 or 32 teams? Are TOs not allowed to invite any teams to those, must the all be through qualifiers? Must every event large or small be through only qualifiers?

2023-08-03 19:56

3 replies

Yeah, there's a lot of unknowns: What does this mean for ECL? Can teams "retain" a spot based on performance from a previous event? Can they qualify from another event?

2023-08-03 20:17

they still can invite, just not to make it a franchise partnership

2023-08-03 21:52

1 reply

I misunderstood then, thank you

2023-08-03 22:23

Common valve W

2023-08-03 19:58

Huge win finally

2023-08-03 19:58

hopeles change. this will affect saleries across the board. guaranteed cash will vanish. and what about the amount of money the orgs have paid? will Valve compensate? will esl and blast still want to be organizing big events in the future? prepare for banana major

2023-08-03 19:59

3 replies

ofc salaries willx bbe cut by xbhuge margin but they are inflated already

2023-08-03 20:04

2 replies

i dont get it the time right now, is where we have seen the best played cs ever. best players in the best teams/orgs. the only thing Valve have going for them is the timing and cs2. thats it

2023-08-03 20:10

1 reply

if they are really best then they will remain

2023-08-03 20:12

nice

2023-08-03 19:59

Valve doing righteous deeds

2023-08-03 20:00

Huge W

2023-08-03 20:01

mibr scammed heroic KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

2023-08-03 20:01

1 reply

2023-08-03 20:18

Good news.

2023-08-03 20:02

we back to old good days

2023-08-03 20:02

huge

2023-08-03 20:02

huge W

2023-08-03 20:02

big w

2023-08-03 20:03

NiKo getting blasted by no namers from CIS tier 2 now that he cant get straight invites due to g2's partnership w/ blast and esl

2023-08-03 20:03

It is good as long as the ranking isn't corrupt as ESIC. "good Systems" only work if the people on the base of the system share the idea of their Intentions. And we see in politics, FIFA, etc that it ends badly some day. That is why a relatively free market is the best system we have. It is closer to real nature and not determined by 1 thing only.

2023-08-03 20:04

5 replies

so free market, where EG, OG, NIP, BIG are getting invites and still getting demolished by other teams is better than to rely on Valve's own ranking system?

2023-08-03 21:55

4 replies

Depends on Valve's ranking system. The point is that in the current system at least if Blast is shit then ESL can compete. Now if Valve is shit we're just all stuck with it. So hopefully they're not shit.

2023-08-03 23:32

This would be one consequences. You should think what happen if valve ranking gets corrupted... Then you get all the shit the corrupt rankings provide and that on every tournament. Concentration of power leads to corruption... That is something we see and saw everywhere

2023-08-04 04:34

2 replies

Valve corrupting their own rating?

2023-08-04 05:05

1 reply

First all Murphy law exist in the entire world... And GabeN will some day be gone. And some one take over that isn't him. Maybe this guy will sell valve... Imagine Activision Blizzard Valve

2023-08-04 05:51

mega based shit. long we waited

2023-08-03 20:05

rip EG and coL

2023-08-03 20:05

Finally. Tournaments will be participated by the best teams, not only with biggest pockets.

2023-08-03 20:06

Nice ig

2023-08-03 20:10

Absolutely brilliant. Well done Valve. Invite merchants go home!

2023-08-03 20:11

nice i wonder how this will affect the cs esports scene

2023-08-03 20:12

1 reply

will be a good change, if valve will increase % from stickers and prize pool for majors and give money for prize pool for TO's

2023-08-03 21:57

BIG and EG disbands in 2 years

2023-08-03 20:12

bye bye fraud teams

2023-08-03 20:12

BYE BYE EG, WOOOOOOO

2023-08-03 20:15

Massive W for the entire scene!

2023-08-03 20:17

This is very good for NiP

2023-08-03 20:19

Good. Let's end the mickey mouse tournaments. Massive W

2023-08-03 20:21

5 replies

mickey.. mouse?

2023-08-03 20:23

4 replies

You joking about mouz or?

2023-08-03 20:24

3 replies

no I'm asking what mickey mouse tournaments mean

2023-08-03 20:28

2 replies

It means fake or not serious. Kinda like 'clown fiesta'

2023-08-04 00:52

1 reply

I see. Thank you.

2023-08-04 11:19

Rip EG forever

2023-08-03 20:23

RIP EG

2023-08-03 20:23

based, watch half of these fluke teams not qualify now

2023-08-03 20:24

Imagine... A meritocracy! No way! P.s. TIL I'm Asian!

2023-08-03 20:28

bye eg welcome to blast c9

2023-08-03 20:27

RIP half of tier 1 CS going bankrupt now

2023-08-03 20:28

2 replies

To be fair they were already going bankrupt, just faster now

2023-08-04 00:50

Mercy kill

2023-08-06 08:24

Nice, well done, Valve

2023-08-03 20:29

rip all the fluke teams in T1

2023-08-03 20:35

Great stuff we don't have to see NA teams anymore

2023-08-03 20:35

based Valve

2023-08-03 20:38

If they manage to fix their rankings it'll be really cool

2023-08-03 20:38

oh shit actually incredibly pog, maybe Valve will start do involve themselves more with the esports side of things again

2023-08-03 20:40

POG W

2023-08-03 20:42

Finally a good shift valve! bravo

2023-08-03 20:43

nice

2023-08-03 20:48

Nice

2023-08-03 20:50

Biggest Valve W I've ever seen

2023-08-03 20:51

this might be the best news we've seen in a long time

2023-08-03 20:53

Finally we don't see G2 and other pointless teams.. Tournaments will become more interesting. Every faceit team can win Major.

2023-08-03 20:54

2 replies

major always been like that, any team can qualify.

2023-08-03 20:55

A random faceit team could never compete with tier1 lmao.

2023-08-04 09:53

nice.

2023-08-03 20:55

FINALLY BYE BYE PARTNERED TEAMS

2023-08-03 20:56

Well. Lets hope for bulletproof anticheat in CS2. Instead every open qual will be hell.

2023-08-03 20:56

Finally

2023-08-03 20:57

Yes we need more fluke 1-tournament run teams.

2023-08-03 20:58

3 replies

I hope valve has a plan for actually getting org-less teams that qualify to the tournaments lol. Gonna be hella underwhelming if teams constantly qualify and then drop out because of money or visas.

2023-08-04 00:48

2 replies

and then get replace by complexity

2023-08-04 09:15

1 reply

lol silver linings

2023-08-04 09:28

W by GOAT GAME

2023-08-03 21:00

Let's gooo probably Navi will be exposed to be have bad management 🤣 (like their dota 2 roster

2023-08-03 21:01

Good

2023-08-03 21:01

2023-08-03 21:02

W from Valve. That should make less matches being 16-4 stomps and boring to viewers, also NA paycheck stealers doing bare minimum for their pro careers pisses me off. Other than that every major should contain 32 teams from all world regions to fund them from sticker money and prizepool shouldnt be 1,25 mil only

2023-08-03 21:12

This is probably the biggest and the most impactful news for the competitive scene, in a good way. No one wants to see #25 team knocking off #2 team in a $500K tournament just to achieve one single drop of water in the desert. Big kudos to Valve.

2023-08-03 21:12

1 reply

no one wants to see a #25 team period

2023-08-06 08:52

very interesting

2023-08-03 21:16

Great decision 👏

2023-08-03 21:18

rip counter strike

2023-08-03 21:22

hell yeah, F partnered teams

2023-08-03 21:23

WWW

2023-08-03 21:30

gg EZ! if you can't qualify through earlier merits or reach a qualification through competing, stay at home

2023-08-03 21:33

OMG Valve you are best! Bye OG, EG etc

2023-08-03 21:34

Sounds like good thing, but not sure about the ecosystem. There are partnered teams that has 0 reason to be invited to the event/league for sure. That said, the ranking system has to be bulletproof, or everything will be filled by open qualifiers.

2023-08-03 21:36

massive W

2023-08-03 21:39

YES! Valve has integrity

2023-08-03 21:40

RIP EG.

2023-08-03 21:42

amazing ranking system check out mongolz and ihc

2023-08-03 21:50

On one hand it's good news for competition, on another hand valve are so out of touch when it comes to cs esports

2023-08-03 21:57

Good. Now C9 can play in all epl and blast tournaments

2023-08-03 21:58

Love it, finally it will remove the shit orgs like a EG and Complexity

2023-08-03 22:00

Based

2023-08-03 22:02

Expected from commies

2023-08-03 22:06

Rip NA teams

2023-08-03 22:10

1 reply

Either that or we might get free spots? The rankings volvo published are split into EU, Americas, and Asia... will TOs have to give spots to each region? Or can they just invite the top 16 EU teams only lol

2023-08-04 00:43

pai gaben is working

2023-08-03 22:11

RIP EG.

2023-08-03 22:17

FINALLY THANKS VALVE

2023-08-03 22:28

Nice

2023-08-03 22:30

terrible news. now every tournament will have a fluker t2 team running around making deep runs. that specific team will be gone and dead in the water for 4-6 months before another making another appearance, but the tourneys themselves will be full of these shitters. cs matches will be much less fan-friendly to watch from that point on.

2023-08-03 22:36

4 replies

Expected from American

2023-08-03 22:48

Read again

2023-08-04 00:02

NA CS fan talking LUL

2023-08-04 05:34

Yeah riiiight, because seeing paycheck stealers like EG, CoL, BIG, OG and NiP getting absolutely bodied for the 1000th time is so much better. -16/8

2023-08-06 08:46

Nip are fckd

2023-08-03 22:41

hooray!

2023-08-03 22:43

events might drop in production quality

2023-08-03 22:49

1 reply

I doubt it, the Savvy Games Group (SGG) has plenty of money.

2023-08-03 22:52

Best possible move by Valve. So long, Evil Geniuses.

2023-08-03 22:48

BIG W

2023-08-03 22:50

VALVE DOING SOMETHING GOOD YESSS

2023-08-03 22:51

so fucking nice, fuck ESL and all these pretentious fuckers who think they own CS but they actually dont when daddy says it, get absolutely fucked proud entitled money grabbers, all of you

2023-08-03 22:52

1 reply

Legend

2023-08-04 00:21

1. this will probably make the economical situation for some teams even harder without longterm deals. 2. dropping some tournaments might not be possible for teams because it will influence their ranking. 3. we will probably see more fluke teams like gl on tournaments instead of big names. unsure if this update helps cs esport. How will this update affect smaller leagues with their own ranking system? These usually do not have an "open qualifier".

2023-08-03 23:02

1 reply

1. Yeah, so what? This step would redistribute the same money to teams that need money more. 2. Of course it would be possible. A very similar system has been working for the ATP in tennis for god knows how long. There are players who are good enough that they only play in ATP 500+ tournaments or even 1000+. 3. The flaw in your logic is when a "fluke" team like GL takes down "big names" fairly consistently. Maybe such big names are just names if they can't really perform off of their performance alone. In the past 3 months, GL have won against Fnatic (twice), OG, Mouz, Heroic, and even the new C9 only advanced against them by the skin of their teeth.

2023-08-04 10:40

No doubt it is a great move for competitivness of the scene, but I'm really afraid how it will affect the scene ecosystem. Big teams and big orgs now live based on those partner deals and removal of them... I just think we cannot really predict the consequences in the finances and I'm not sure it they won't be very bad. But I don't believe I have the knowledge to predict the outcome. I just hope it will work in terms of money and we will have a more level playing field

2023-08-03 23:20

2 replies

+1 it's going to change EVERYTHING Another big factor will be scheduling. Even if they win every qualifier, teams are going to have to miss a lot of events because the qualifiers are happening during another event.

2023-08-03 23:39

1 reply

I think this needs some fine tuning, but this is definitely a huge step in the right direction. To solve the qualifier issue, I'd imagine that some teams should be able to just forego the qualifiers based on their performance, just like in tennis. Maybe implement some kind of a point system that enables consistent performers to redeem spots? Like a tournament win is worth 100 points, 2nd place is 60, 3rd and 4th is 50, 5-6-7-8 is 30, etc. And it'd cost like 60 points to "buy" a spot in another event of the same level. Majors should be 100% qualifiers though, no point bullshit.

2023-08-04 10:26

Well the partner teams half a year and a half to get their shit together and learn how to become skilled enough to qualify for shit

2023-08-03 23:20

massive change

2023-08-03 23:35

So is Valve only going to have regional rankings and not global ones? How does that work with international tournaments?

2023-08-03 23:36

FINALLY

2023-08-03 23:39

Finally the teams will go to tournaments according to sports rules.

2023-08-03 23:46

1 reply

Sort of, although most sports leagues lock in teams for at least one full season, which gives them some stability. Think Premiere League, for example. I'm worried this may be a little TOO far - how are teams supposed to sign a lease for a practice facility if they don't know what their tournament schedule will be like, for example?

2023-08-04 00:37

No more EG? Jesus Christ thank you Valve

2023-08-03 23:52

THANKS VALVE

2023-08-04 00:01

Now restrict SA teams from using NA spots

2023-08-04 00:02

1 reply

How will regional spots even work? The rankings volvo published are split into EU, Americas, and Asia... will TOs have to invite even numbers from each list? Or pick any combination?

2023-08-04 00:33

Valve is right to move in the direction of a more open circut. But this may prove to be an extreme step, that could kill quite a few orgs who have invested heavily in partner spots, and generally dampen the economy for everyone in the scene. Simply forcing TO’s to have fx 50% of team come in through open quals could have been enough.

2023-08-04 00:06

3 replies

I say good fucking riddance to that. Let those orgs burn. I'm sick and tired of seeing useless t4 level trash teams like EG play in every t1 tournament just because mommy and daddy has the organizer in their pockets. I'd much rather have ENCE, TheMongolz, 9INE, BNE, Apeks or GL posing an actual threat to real t1 teams.

2023-08-04 10:12

2 replies

I get that, but it’s not just low performing orgs that could be in serious trouble here. The share price of fx Heroic stock is already down 98%, the org only surviving on continued new venture capital being injected every few months. And now they see their biggest asset, their expensive league spots, turn to dust. Investors will be furious, it could be the end of them..

2023-08-05 09:29

1 reply

I'd be really sorry for the Heroic team, I've been a fan for years, but if being at the top of the t1 scene isn't financially rewarding, they would've gone bankrupt anyways.

2023-08-06 08:29

Best change to CS in a fucking decade. Next they just need to remove skins...but unfortunately they will never go that far; they get too much income from underage gamblers and scammers

2023-08-04 00:18

1 reply

Why remove skins? I get cracking down on the gambling (and it looks like they may be starting to do that - twitch just explicitly banned skin gambling promotions), but the skins are the only thing funding development currently... would you prefer to pay a subscription or pay-per-view tournaments or something?

2023-08-04 00:28

very good news

2023-08-04 00:19

Good

2023-08-04 01:04

This is like good and bad, they've dealt with the problem, but now they've added their own problem.

2023-08-04 01:16

Great Valve does always care! I love them.

2023-08-04 01:25

so it's like a fresh start for cs2

2023-08-04 01:44

Historic shit, ladies and gentlemen

2023-08-04 02:00

this is huge, but if its valve's ranking system then that likely means bad news

2023-08-04 02:37

1 reply

expect things like the current Dota season, where the team that won 3 of 3 majors is second in DPC points...

2023-08-04 06:45

CS pro scene will finally be competitive and not P2W, GG volvo

2023-08-04 02:44

what about t2 tournaments? academy leagues? what happens to them?

2023-08-04 02:46

Fucking right on!!! Go Valve.

2023-08-04 03:30

Common Volvo W Bye bye trash BLAST groups events

2023-08-04 04:02

This is huge for boomerdemons.

2023-08-04 05:25

rip eg

2023-08-04 05:33

Brilliant, thank you volvo

2023-08-04 06:00

Common Valve W

2023-08-04 06:05

Good change. Now small orgs like ence wilö have change to compete in every tournament.

2023-08-04 06:19

let's see if people that shit on online CS are ready for a whole lot more of it on t1...

2023-08-04 06:51

-EG -OG -BIG

2023-08-04 07:02

if u dont fix your anticheat system u gonna have a big big drama valve

2023-08-04 08:03

Mongolz Up

2023-08-04 08:35

Oh YESSSS, this is the best decision in CS in years. EG is gone no doubt, good fucking riddance, wp Valve. BIG, NiP, OG, CoL also in danger.

2023-08-04 10:06

Based Valve

2023-08-04 10:14

HUGE W move from VALVE

2023-08-04 10:21

excellent. finally we wont have to watch trash teams get bodied every time they play. like all na teams ect

2023-08-04 10:32

Fantastic news! Most CS events have just become stupid and essentially a waste of time. Like, for instance, wtf is BLAST Groups? Lose one bo3, go to lower bracket. Lose another bo3, go to last chance. Lose another bo3, go to another event where you can still qualify. In the BLAST circuit you have more lives than a fking cat. ESL Pro League is pretty stupid too; five weeks of almost constant bo3's, seriously? TO's became too obsessed with viewer minutes for financial reasons, with it seemingly being the only goal/metric. Perhaps understandable, but not good. It's just the same teams playing each other over and over again all the time. It gets boring quickly. So I think Valve really did something good here!

2023-08-04 11:17

nice! love it! even though as a big fan im going to watch more t2 cs than before I guess. even t3?! but yeah I like it!

2023-08-04 11:40

twitter.com/Thorin/status/16871721909223..

2023-08-04 11:58

1 reply

classic clown take from low T

2023-08-04 12:48

YOOO LET'S GO

2023-08-04 12:11

GOOD Now BIG maybe needs to actually become a good team to play such tournaments. It was clear that non-title-competitor partner teams were basically in hibernation.

2023-08-04 12:47

Amazing change

2023-08-04 13:24

Now ban gambling advertisements and sponsors of tournaments

2023-08-04 13:39

Huge win. I'm a BIG fan but but some teams deserve the partner slots more than BIG.

2023-08-04 13:50

Actually good news for small team like mongolz and other unknown teams.

2023-08-04 14:05

Now they just have to ban seeding teams and we're in the clear!

2023-08-04 14:45

Will we finally see some crowd-funded prize pools now? I would love to see these guys duke it out for 10 million dollars 😈