Slow but surely, the Major is catching up to the rest of the tier one circuit.

With ESL announcing that IEM Cologne will feature BO3s all throughout Stage 3, PGL have now added another change for their Major in Singapore at the end of the year - a 3rd place decider.

Which hopefully should also mean the death of showmatches. Thank God.

For some people, this won’t be a particularly big change, but in the world of VRS - it matters a lot.

Think back to Paris, for instance, where that game would’ve been contested between Apeks and HEROIC. HEROIC were the second best team in the world at the time, sure, but the VRS point reward for the much lower ranked Apeks would’ve been massive, a real reason to go out and play that match like it’s the Major final itself.

In other news, the VRS cutoff date for Singapore will be November 2nd, far closer to the actual start date of the Major than it has been with IEM Cologne.

If you read this week’s Deep Dive, you’ll know already that we’re a huge fan of this change. If the Major invitees are meant to represent the best teams across the season, then having the invite date as close to the start of the Major is undoubtedly good thing.

Now, how about we get BO3s for the whole thing and remove some of those make-a-wish spots for Asia and the Americas?