Bigger is better

Valve has officially updated the Major rulebook. It confirms the long-rumored shift to a 32-team format, with the Valve Ranking System (VRS) taking center stage.

Now, most of us aren’t interested in formats or the nitty-gritty details - we just want great Counter-Strike. So, we’ll keep it short and sweet.

Kicking off with the BLAST.tv Austin Major in June, here’s everything you need to know about each step on the journey to lifting the Major trophy.

Step 1 - Major Regional Qualifiers (MRQ):

Step 2 - Stage 1:

Step 3 - Stage 2:

Step 4 - Stage 3:

Step 5 - Playoffs:

And that’s it - simple, right? If you’re aiming for the CS nerd status, here’s Valve’s official Rulebook with every single detail for you to dive into.

EliGE, pees and roster nee(w)s

Rostermania is like a direct train between two cities, there’s no stopping till the end. As such, let us be your train conductor for the day, with a summary of all the sights seen this past week.

We touched on EliGE’s move to FaZe in our last edition, but now it’s actually confirmed. We’re still waiting for Vitality to announce ropz but we suspect its a foregone conclusion. What isn’t so sure is if FaZe will be making yet another move before the season kicks into gear. Oh hey, the rain is clearing up…

In other roster news:

“I’m not a bit braindead…”

It’s Sam’s first time in the hotseat, and he’s started strong, calling his co-host braindead and calling Calyx a bit rubbish.

All aboard the Train… train

Siuuuu? More like, choo-choo, are we right guys?

Guys?

Yeah, yeah, we know that was f–cking dreadful. Deal with it.

We can’t help it. We’re just really excited about the fact that we’ve finally been saved from the misery that Vertigo has been causing us since it arrived in the map pool back in 2019.

Seriously, not only was Vertigo miserable to both play and watch, but it never actually had any high points during its stay. Think about it, can you name a single great Vertigo game since it was brought in? No, you can’t. Because there hasn’t been one.

It’s a really good thing that it’s gone, but we can’t say that we’re too thrilled about the map that has replaced it.

And that’s not because we don’t like Train, we’re just not sure about this version of Train.

Realistically, we don’t think that this map is ready for competitive play. Old Train may have been solved and its pick-rate went down the drain, but it was better than this new version, and we would’ve liked to see how it would have played with the changes to smokes in CS2.

Of course, Valve could always make it undergo a boatload (trainload?) of changes to get it back up to standard, but we feel like in order to do that it will have to return to a state much more similar to what it was in CS:GO.

And that begs the question, why change it in the first place?

They could’ve just done an Overpass and made it look pretty, but they had to meddle with it, so we’d have preferred it if they’d just brought Overpass back instead. It’s by far a better map.

We have faith that Train will be good eventually, and we’re glad Vertigo is gone. But Vertigo’s removal should have fixed a lot of the issues with the map pool and unfortunately, we just don’t think this has fixed much at all.

Saying that, if they remove Inferno and give us Overpass again, we’re happy to keep our mouths shut.

The end is nigh

We don’t want to be a bunch of Debbie Downers. We really don’t. Usually we are, so we understand your skepticism.

But sadly it feels like the end – or at least some sort of inflection point – for women-only Counter-Strike is nigh.

Wow. For a bunch of people not trying to be doom-mongers, we didn’t half sound like doom-mongers.

A few organisations have left women’s CS in the last year or so, but today’s harbinger is NAVI, who have dropped the Javelins team that was inarguably one of the three best teams in the scene. They weren’t Imperial fe, but they weren’t far off.

If even that team isn’t sustainable, as NAVI mentioned, then who is? Nigma Galaxy dropped out too, and they had the multiple-time winners of ESL Impact.

With Impact having fewer events this year and ESL being forced to dial it back a little bit, it seems that side of the game is one of the first casualties – perhaps unsurprisingly. It was the newest addition, and the business cynics in us think it probably wasn’t making any money either.

However, there is a positive spin. NAVI Javelins are pretty high up in the Valve Rankings, and there’s a non-zero chance that they get a shot at a big event this year, which wouldn’t have been possible under the NAVI banner if the male roster was playing too.

All we’re saying is that if they have a good showing once at an event against men, there will be organizations falling over themselves to have the first women’s team that plays at big events.

But if they don’t… it’s hard to see a way back for women’s CS, at least for the time being.

👑👋 Eras inevitably end

💸 Cash must flow

🙅‍♂️ Valve don’t fix

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, AN1MO, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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