Valve’s Major rankings
Have you been a good boy/girl this year?
Santa Valve has written his list, and it’s time to find out if you’ve been naughty or nice. It’s nearly Counter-Strike Christmas, and it’s coming in the Texas sun.
The naughty/nice list is complete, and it’s public, unlike Santa Claus’. Sidenote, we wish Santa published a naughty/nice list so we knew where we ranked back then. Back 16 months ago.
There are no big shocks in the top eight (or ‘Stage 3’) at the Major, with Vitality, MOUZ, Spirit, Aurora, NAVI, G2, Liquid and The MongolZ. Alright, you can raise an eyebrow at Liquid, given… we’ll get to that in a bit.
That basically means they get to avoid the first two Swiss systems, which is pretty nice.
Eight more teams enter in Stage Two (skipping one Swiss system), with names like Falcons and FaZe being joined by an impressive 3DMAX, VP, paiN, FURIA, MIBR and M80, who finally get some stickers.
That’s nice and all, but the exciting bit is the MRQs, which is basically the RMRs but less saucy. You can find the full list here, but we’ll give you some of the big stories.
Astralis, fnatic, ENCE, and HEROIC are the ‘big’ names in Europe, but we expect GamerLegion to fly through. Jame’s PARIVISION are there, BIG are there sadly, OG are perennially in some sort of qualifier, so it’s hardly surprising to see them. There’s no real stand-out wildcard there.
South America has Legacy, Fluxo and Imperial, with the rest being sort of whatever. The North America one has Complexity, Wildcard and NRG, with a bunch of also-rans. Sorry to be mean, but we’ll care about Marsborne if they qualify.
China has the three teams you’re imagining, with DogEvil taking the fourth spot. That’s actually the name. We’re not messing with you. They have lan and B1NGO you might know, but we’re personally rooting for Roninbaby stickers.
Australia has four teams, but we know FlyQuest will make it. Let’s be honest. Asia has three Mongolian teams and one Indian team, remarkably.
When did Mongolia get so many teams?
The most notable absences are NIP, Spirit Academy (because they can’t be there), and, uh, we’re struggling. Passion UA? ex-Aurora? Something like that.
We’re really excited.