Despite what you may think, the rumours are not true. VRS does not stand for ‘very rubbish system’, that’s merely a backronym.

It is, however, very rubbish.

Do you remember not long ago when BNE came and blew the RMR wide open and made Counter-Strike fun again? What if we had that, but none of the fun parts? Valve have the answer.

We’re sick of talking about how rubbish VRS is, but it’s important because the Major invites go out on the 6th of October, and there’s not many tournaments before then that matter - in fact, the biggest one is happening right now.

That would be StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2025, where NIP, OG, PARIVISION, B8, Gentle Mates and 9INE all have a shot to get enough points to qualify, and a big result here would go a long way to securing that spot.

Oh, and Passion UA over in the Americas. NAVI are the last team, but they’re basically a lock.

There’s a few other matches that might matter between now and then, but for NIP it seems to be the last chance they have. We say seems, because we can’t be certain - not only is this system worse, it’s also a bloody nightmare to follow.

We shouldn’t have to be doing maths or reading about whether ‘Galaxy Battle 2025 Phase 4’ counts for ‘VRS points’. This is nonsense. The only maths should be three wins, or three losses.

We think it does count, by the way. So OG, PARIVISION and Gentle Mates might have another go.

That makes this a very important tournament for NIP, who despite being… well, NIP, are actually half-decent now, and were built with the goal of eventually abusing the system enough to edge their way to a Major, and this is their shot to do so.

They did muscle past OG, thankfully, but PARIVISION are in exquisite form and will meet them today having smacked B8 around. Personally, we expect PARIVISION to make it again, because Jame is in the form of his life.

So, what do you need to know?

NIP have, according to the prediction man linked earlier, the best shot by virtue of being the best team. A good result for them could push them above SAW and HEROIC, and maybe fnatic.

This system is awful, unintuitive, opaque and anti-fun.

PARIVISION are flying and stand a good shot at making it, especially if Gentle Mates and NIP don’t go deep.

Gentle Mates won’t go deep. It’s Movistar without SunPayus, for crying out loud.

9INE will have to do something outrageous like winning the event to have a shot. They lost to NAVI yesterday. Good luck.

Same for B8, except they lost to PARIVISION.

Did we mention the system sucks?