You don’t know you’re in the golden days ‘til one day, they’re over, and you look back fondly.

God, we miss Bad News Eagles.

The RMRs were perfect. Alright, not perfect. Nothing is perfect, save for a good quality sandwich, The Fratellis’ first album, the sunset and Team Vitality’s record for the last few months.

Fratellis’ second album was a bit crap, though. Just like Team Vita- ah, we’ll get to that.

Valve already eliminated the best events of the year and replaced them with MRQs, and now we don’t even have those anymore.

Going forward, at least for the next Major, it’s all invites based on VRS.

You know, like every other event in the system that has had massive flaws all season long, and that we’re still closing loopholes in.

The whole fun of the Major was that anyone could join. It’s created amazing stories, life-changing career jump-off points, and the best moments in Counter-Strike history.

Instead, we’re going to have the teams that have played the most events all season play at this one. It’s impossibly hard to get invites without already having a high VRS (just ask NIP), and it’s impossibly easy to maintain one when you have one.

We wouldn’t like the invite system if VRS worked properly, but it’s egregiously bad right now. It insulates mediocre teams from the consequences of their banality and limits the fun teams who might actually beat someone.

Don’t believe us? Lynn Vision would have missed out on this Major under this system. BIG and Astralis would have made it.

If that’s not an indictment…

It’s a shame that what used to be the most exciting tournament of the year has been reduced to an administrative decision, and we think the Major is made worse by it.

All the big teams are just going to keep smashing all the little ones, it seems.

(coughs)