CS2: Good Riddance, Open Qualifiers
It's been three months since many pros and talent got up in arms over what was a largely sensible removal of open qualifiers - how's it taste today, now that everything's worked out fine?
Backstory
As I’m writing this, the EU closed qualifiers for the Perfect World Shanghai Major have finished, and the rest of the regions are underway [and have finished, now that I’m delaying the release of the article]. This is the first Major cycle since the removal of open qualifiers for EU and Americas - a Valve move that came with it’s fair share of complainers, whom we will get into shortly.
Before I start making fun of people, it’s only fair I give my own opinion first.
I was and am in support of this change, especially in the European region. It just about works out in the Americas as well, since there are enough tournaments and ranking points gained to make the invites reasonable. Thankfully, they remain in existence in the APAC region where teams often cannot gain ranking points but are still good enough to qualify to the RMR.
Yet, there were plenty of people - pros and talent alike - who saw this as some sort of monumental crushing of hopes. Valve have taken the ice cream cone out of their hands and thrown it on the ground! For shame, Valve! My dream of qualifying to the Major, dashed by this sudden change…you’re killing CS (again)! And yet, strangely, three months later, the closed qualifiers have run smoothly (well, there were some other issues relating to banned coaches, but that’s not related) and continue to do so with little complaint. Almost as if those complaints were not well founded in and of themselves…almost.
If you think I’m being unfair and want to complain, or otherwise get in contact, be sure to follow me on Twitter!
Valve Killed The Counter-Strike Dream
Let’s address the most common and often mentioned complaint - the crushing of the American Counter-Strike dream.
I’m not sure if people have realised, but we are not in 2014. The landscape has evolved drastically. I see no reason why in Europe, a region with many online tournaments and ways to grind ranking points, a team can’t achieve their Major dreams as a five man lineup. It rewards consistency and recent form, and obviously rewards winning lineups. One flash-in-the-pan open qualifier
run does not a Major team make.
The real truth behind this stance is that it is pure romanticism for an age which no longer exists and no longer has any reason to. It causes people who otherwise might have formed reasonable stances to react rather than respond. Think it through and you’ll realise that if a team is good enough to make it through a European open qualifier, but aren’t good enough to have ranking points sufficient to be invited, they are either a brand new lineup (in which case, they should form their rosters appropriately to match the deadlines) or are a fluke team displaying one success in a sea of failures (which should be rewarded in the biggest CS tournament…why?). I sympathise a little more with the former because some new teams can be strong but are just unable to play enough before the cutoff point. However, I suspect this problem will not be repeated given that the deadline is no longer the open qualifiers, but the closed qualifier invites - in which case teams and players will simply change their decision making timings.
Here’s the thing - nobody said you can’t dream. In fact, you should! That’s what will keep you fresh in your 150th map of the month playing your online cups - the knowledge this is an accumulation of points that gets you to that goal. Let’s be realistic, however. To address the half-serious point above, if you aren’t on a salaried team you probably won’t win a Major, short of miracles like an org suddenly collapsing around an existing skilled team. Even a small amount of organisational support clearly goes a long way given that teams like BNE, who made thousands from Major stickers while being free agents, still chose to join an org (and then collapse).
The Reality
Now that every team has qualified to the RMRs, we can look at the bigger picture and actually judge the outcome - and it’s impressively well done. The only major players who were unable to make it across the board were ENCE and OG, both of whom were fielding relatively untested rosters and deservedly lost. There’s also no team crying about their inability to play an open qualifier that clearly deserves this chance! The lowest ranked teams (on HLTV) who were playing these closed qualifiers goes down to the 100th ranked team. Some of these teams frankly wouldn’t even make it past the open qualifiers - but they had enough wins in recent history to get them this chance.
The format is not perfect. I would still prefer the removal of Bo1s completely now that we’ve removed open qualifiers from this section of the event - a few days added to the calendar would be a small price to pay to ensure every result is as valid as can be. Despite this, the seeding is sufficient and the results speak for themselves. Aided by the fact that these closed qualifiers only invite lower teams to begin with (since higher ranked teams directly reach the RMR), the invite system has ensured we won’t be missing any names going into the next phase of the Major cycle.
I expect this to be the norm, especially when you consider that every top event will have to follow Valve’s ranking for invites (and even smaller events will if multiple are run in a year, if I understand it), thus keeping a sense of internal consistency. It’s ironic that the one time where it could have blown up in my face - the only Major with a new invite system during a dying partner league era - it seems to have worked perfectly.
The Meltdown
Now that I’ve made my case, it’s time to laugh at some of the more embarrassing tweets. Rejin, now the coach of TSM (and previously banned for coach bug abuse), decided to use this change as an opportunity to suggest that the invite system is not open and available for all. Ironically, the investments into female teams in recent years (and the fact that it is still possible to host events for female teams by Valve’s rules specifically) make it entirely possible for female teams to be invited in the future.
It wouldn’t be right to mention ECSTATIC without mentioning my own dunk on them. They claim to have been part of a romantic open qualifier journey that would not be possible under the new ruleset but this is simply untrue. They would have made it by directly being invited to the closed qualifiers at that time.
The real question is why teams like ECSTATIC and Entropiq believe they are entitled to the opportunity to compete in an open qualifier...
This horrible storm culminated in an embarrassing petition (please don’t sign it just because I’m referencing it) where people unironically were clamouring to reverse the decision and voicing their support online. I’ll let you know why the orgs want to keep it that way - they want to avoid supporting teams over extended periods of time, funding them across seasons to get consistency, and supporting them during tough times.
They want to pay a team a pittance in the leadup to an open qualifier so they can cash out big on the off chance that these teams qualify to the Major. Organisations like Entropiq will chase this bag so hard that they will bench their entire roster instead of trying to keep a team and build it up, gathering ranking points for the next cycle - because they know they are unable to build a long term project. The lack of managers and coaches who build actual teams with visions will weed themselves out and I can’t wait to see it continue.
Looking Forward
If anything, this is yet another lesson to withhold your trust in many CS professionals. These are people who are fantastic at what they do - but it is important to pay attention to what it is that they do. Professional players especially are usually good at one thing and it’s the game they are professionals at. They often do not know about the scene, they often do not know how to effectively enter the meta discussions surrounding these concepts. They can’t draw up a format for tournaments or translate their intuitive understandings of the game into spoken thoughts or written words. Those who can are the exceptions, not the rule. Aside from IGLs who are often able to do so by virtue of their role and position in teams, there are some players like ropz who will take the time to form better opinions. It’s just not the norm. Even the words of former professionals turned coach or analyst can sometimes be tinged with nostalgia or intangible feelings that are left over from their time in the chair pressing the keys - sometimes you can’t even blame them.
It’s hard to argue with someone over something that they don’t actually logically believe. Flimsy things like “the dream” are not actual points that Valve should be considering when drawing up larger plans for professional rules - and I’m glad they take a more measured approach, even if it means some corners are smoothed off in the process.
Teams complained about the fact that they have to play open qualifiers even if they are highly ranked outside of the Major circuit. This feedback shifted the rules towards direct invites based on ranking points, and other teams complained in the ways I’ve described above. Short of making the Major circuit extend further and further until closed qualifiers have 128 teams to accommodate every single team, this approach is provably successful. The fortunate aspect of this change is that the teams who do lose out from this change are those who deserve to be forgotten - so the appropriate legacy will write itself.
Honestly, I think in a few years, people will laugh at the concept of having European open qualifiers for the biggest tournament of the season. “Why did we let the region containing teams who play 150 maps a month have only one shot to qualify through a single elimination gauntlet that could have literally anyone as their opponent?”
So long, open qualifiers for the Major. We will remember the times when you were needed when the scene was still growing, but now that the circuit is healthy, hopefully we won’t try to revive the dead.
Afterword
Thank you for reading my article! I went a little more free and fast with this one, and I hope you enjoyed it. As always, send any feedback to my Twitter - and perhaps we can continue being a little loose-lipped if it’s to your taste and mine.
I continue to release new YouTube videos and have recently been playing/streaming some Deadlock - if there’s ever a pro scene in that game, I’ll try to participate in a similar capacity despite my MOBA inexperience. It’s a fun game!