Valve Regional Standings (VRS) is Counter-Strike’s open invite system. Teams earn points by beating opponents, then Valve uses those rankings to decide invites for the Major. Here is a simplified guide to understand what goes into the rankings and how the invites are decided.
Ranking points
On August 3rd, 2023 Valve announced a move away from partner leagues to an open system where invites are based on competitive results, not business deals. The goal is that any team can reach big events through performance.
VRS uses results from the last six months and updates daily and monthly. Four main categories give you an initial score, then a head-to-head adjustment is applied to give you the final ranking.
- Bounty offered: your top 10 prize wins, weighted by recency. Full value if the event ended within 1 month, fades to zero over the next 5 months.
- Bounty collected: your 10 best wins over teams with high recent prize money. Weighted by recency and event value.
- Opponent network: your 10 best wins against teams that have beaten many different opponents recently. Weighted by recency and event value.
- LAN wins: your 10 most recent LAN wins. Only recency matters. Full value in the last month, fades to zero over the next 5 months.
After those four categories are calculated you get a temporary rank and then the head to head is applied, which gives you the final ranking for the team.
- Head to head: a final pass that shifts points from loser to winner for every recent match. Upsets move more points, older matches move fewer, and values update as opponents rise or fall.
Tournament invites
After rankings are calculated, the organizer sets a snapshot date and chooses which VRS list to use, Global or a single region. On the snapshot date, invites are sent in strict ranking order from that list. This applies to all tournaments, not just the Major.
If a team declines, the next team on the list is invited. An invited roster must play with at least three of the five players who were on that roster at the snapshot. There’s also different rules for the tournament, depending on if it’s a tier 1 or 2 tournament.
Because several of these invite rules are new, events planned earlier might not meet these requirements.
Tier 1 tournaments
- Invite from the Global, Americas, Europe, or Asia VRS list
- Start at rank 1 and go down in order
- Invite at least 20 teams directly from VRS
- Open qualifiers can be added on top
Tier 2 tournaments
- Can run entirely through open qualifiers
- If using VRS, invite in order from a chosen starting rank
- Invite at least 4 teams directly from VRS
- Extra filters are allowed, for example North America only, country, or gender
- Any VRS invited team must be ranked lower than 12 on the Global VRS at the snapshot
Wildcards
- For every 8 direct VRS invites, 2 wildcard teams can be added
- Wildcards must be lower than 12 on the Global VRS and meet eligibility, for example a recent first or second place at the same or lower tier, or a core of three players from top 12 rosters within the last six months
Source: Valve GitHub
