CS2: We Need To Adjust To The Valve Ranking Culture
2025's open circuit will take everyone - orgs, players, TOs, viewers - some time to get used to.
Preamble
It took us years of partner team slop and insular circuits, but we’ve finally made it to 2025. Naturally, this means that everything is immediately fixed in the CS2 scene and it all makes sense (not). We’ve got a few things to get used to, and a few problems I hope will be ironed out in the months and years to come.
Valve is actively participating and regulating the CS2 professional scene like never before. It’s new territory for them and for us, and it shows - already, there are a breadth of exceptions to the specific ruleset Valve set out for operating tournaments which have been accepted.
After the conclusion of BLAST’s novel Bounty format to start the year, I decided against a simple overview of Katowice and instead want to talk about what we might be expecting in the year(s) to come. If you think I missed out on some aspects or want to discuss all things CS2, hit me up on Twitter.
Teams Skipping Tournaments
There are various reasons why teams have skipped events in the past - most prominently to rest after an important event or practice before one. Other factors included travel time and locations, and the general consensus of “prestige” for tournaments like IEMs (which also have the whole Grand Slam discussion).
These discussions are going to be amplified tenfold now that Valve’s ranking is the supreme decider of all invites. Prize pools are more important than ever for getting those numbers up, and playing constantly is a risk-reward calculation every time. Skipping a tournament means risking a lower invite seed, or perhaps not being invited at all - as well as the distinctions between regional Major invites (Americas has one slot in the final Swiss stage, which makes Liquid’s choice to skip out on PGL Cluj even more confusing…).
When you’re looking at each event, don’t just disregard them if top teams don’t attend. Look at the opportunities it affords to the next in line, who gladly took the chance instead.
Roster Move Struggles
The Valve Ranking incentivises cores to stick together for an entire season, and as we will get into later, it’s harder than ever for new rosters to grind up and secure ranking points for the coveted Major cycle. This ties into the overall psychology behind why roster moves happen, and who decides to go where.
Previously, it was all about the partner teams. Even the worst organisations famously were close to attractive top level international players just because they could pay high salaries (well, before they ceased operating in CS) and had guaranteed invites to farm up ranking points. Now, I expect more incremental moves as teams would rather shuffle one or two players every six months, in line with the Majors being at the end of each season - mid-season roster shuffles are almost impossible.
Consider the shock MOUZ siuhy benching. He should be highly valued as a young IGL with experience and clear pedigree, but at this point, is it too late for roster locks and established cores to accept him? He may have resigned himself to six months of benchwarming as a result of internal disputes, just because his benching came a couple weeks into the season. This too is a part of the Valve Ranking Future™.
Value Of A Trophy Lift
In light of the previous discussions and the increase in high prize pool tournaments (PGL’s suite of events comes to mind), people may need to re-evaluate how important each and every tournament win is. It is no longer reasonable to simply rely blind pre-existing notions of value (i.e. IEMs > Blasts or PGLs) over nuanced considerations of prize pools, field of competition, calendar positioning, and so on.
I wrote on this very concept months ago, and much of what I said then still applies, so I recommend reading through that article as well.
So as not to repeat points, I personally would highly value trophy lifts in an era where teams desperately need ranking points and results to go their way. Even if the event is missing top teams, such as PGL Cluj, you need to give credit to teams who attend the events. It’s a little too boring to draw hard lines and say “Kato, Cologne, Majors”, disregarding every single event apart from those - and it doesn’t give fair credit to the other tournament winners!
Where Are The Online CCT-Likes?
One good thing about the scene in the previous years, underneath the top level cycle, was the underbelly of online competition which allowed teams to grind hundreds of maps and eke out prize money and invites in the process. I am mostly referring to CCT tournaments, as they seem to have the most legitimacy and integrity amongst the online matchfixing cesspool.
Aside from CCTs, there were a host of other names providing places for bettors to get their fix - United21, EPL (the non-ESL one), Regional Clash Arena, RES, and so on. No doubt some of these and countless unnamed tournaments contained integrity issues but still provided a decent chance for new grinders to frag out online in the hopes of getting picked up by an eventual LAN attendee.
Teams like Monte, 9INE and GamerLegion have in the past gained such fame from grinding these events that we had serious conversations about the skill of “tier 2” versus established competition. Indeed, the 2023 BLAST Paris Major had two of those attend the playoffs, while the third famously were underwhelming on LAN. What’s important is the fact they rose up the first place.
Currently, there is a dearth of online competition announced. CCT has their 17th series in progress, after invite inconsistencies that resulted in their previous series being stripped of the ranked status for VRS points. It’s not confirmed whether their future editions will continue to be held or comply, but losing one CCT’s worth of ranking points is already a big detriment to lower tier competition and there’s not much else to replace it.
In 2024, there were 168 HLTV online events with a prize pool over $5000 (including some qualifiers). Aside from the aforementioned CCT, there are no Valve ranked online tournaments on the calendar right now, and there have only been two above $5000 that have concluded (Frost and Fire - not counting the online part of BLAST Bounty or CCT’s closed qualifier). Not exaggerating - there are none listed on HLTV. No doubt there are some in the works but given the forward notice required and the risk of getting unranked, thereby having nobody accept your invites except teams who accept they won’t make the Major, I don’t know how many tournament organisers are making that choice.
If left unchanged, this has the potential to leave tier 2 competition up to the cut-throat open qualifiers for the established events by the top shelf organisers (PGL, ESL, BLAST). I expect and hope that in 2026 and onwards, once the rules start to set in for everyone, online events will return. The business model hasn’t changed, after all. It just means 2025 will be a tough year for sub-top teams to shoot up the rankings.
New Major Format Might Just Suck…
Before you get angry, I’d like to apologise for the clickbait subheading. In the long run, it’s a good thing for the Major to have more teams - the distribution of sticker money can create a more sustainable ecosystem. The issue I have with it is a temporary one, borne through the current season’s structure.
These points were actually discussed in a recent episode of my podcast, The Brain Jar, but I thought it relevant to bring up here as well.
My problem boils down to many small things coagulating into a potentially underwhelming blob. Here goes:
The slot distribution (16 EU, 11 AM, 5 AS) and the tri-stage swiss system has the potential to create some of the worst “Major” CS we will ever watch, especially in the first season. The bottom of the barrel for each region will really hurt the viewers in the short term, at least until the competition improves.
Major sticker money has been dwindling since the Paris anomaly (CS:GO’s last Major had some delusionally high sticker sales). Without new income streams, like team patches and charms, the already weakening funds will be diluted further. This is no doubt still beneficial for the teams near the bottom of the financial ladder (and it’s probably a good thing to downsize CS esports if it means a more sustainable future) but for the time being, expect there will be hidden consequences of the lessened funds for this year at least. Think budget roster moves, stagnant teams, compromises to keep star players, and so on.
Another subtle point is viewer fatigue due to these endless back to back Swiss stages at the Major. Not including the RMRs, which will have their own endless Swiss cycle, people will undoubtedly either tune out of the early stage (the better outcome), or even worse, start watching the Major but get tired of it before the later stages when the good teams show up. This is a problem in parallel with the level of the lower tier teams, but is also always going to be relevant while the Swiss stages are all we have. Despite being a great format for sorting through teams in bulk like this, it does get tiring to boot up the major simulator every night.
These factors will likely compound, and unfortunately, make BLAST Austin a pretty awkward Major in terms of viewership and match quality (not that the American timezone helps much). I will concede however that the direct VRS invites to the latter Major stages is a great touch and will save us all some time.
Conclusion
All of the above aspects are hopefully just temporary novelties for us to get adjusted to collectively. For the time being, I think it is interesting to wonder where all of this takes us in the future. I hope for more sub-top tournaments in the future, thus enabling the construction of more new rosters, and potentially some adjustments to the VRS rating formula - less focus on pure prize money, and perhaps adjustments to the nature of point decay to ensure tournaments matter as much as they should in each season.
I also hope we see more regional tournaments, as Valve’s ruleset explicitly allows for it. For instance, there’s a very real fear that teams regionally (think APAC, NA) will be unable to play ranked events and simply won’t get any invites ever as a result. Despite my earlier explanations, I also hope that the Majors this year don’t suck! It would be great if it’s a smooth landing, but it’s also my curse to be a little pragmatic.
As an aside, the pre-announcement of Premier Season 2 by Valve, alongside the map rotation and balance changes to the CT rifles, has me quietly optimistic that this is the year CS2 starts consistently making changes at predictable and regular intervals. The seasons end after each Major and the maps rotate out - the seasons start with the newest set of balance changes from six months of data. It’s not too distant a dream!
Afterword
Thanks for reading yet another article to the end! Let me know if this mish-mash of ideas was conveyed well enough, I decided it would be nice to cover many small points in one swoop rather than try to waffle about specific topics for longer than necessary. If you think I missed something out hit me up on Twitter to discuss it!
I continue to stream on Twitch and upload to YouTube, including aforementioned CS2 podcast The Brain Jar as well as a slew of games. Check them out if you want to hear the voice behind the words you read. Yet again, I look forward to the future!