Genuine question - at what point is VRS meant to represent the best teams of the season? Is that just a European thing? Or is that meant to extend the reason of the world, too? Because if it is, that’s not what we’re seeing.

Or at least, it’s not what we’re seeing with paiN.

paiN impressed everyone when they made the semi-finals at the Austin Major, and given that they’d recently made changes, there was hope that they’d be able to turn that strong showing into consistent results.

But it hasn’t quite panned out that way.

Instead, paiN were given a Stage 3 invite for the StarLadder Budapest Major, and they’ve done precisely nothing to earn it.

Ignoring their shameful performance at CAC in which they were eliminated with just one win over Fluxo and losses to both fnatic and glorified academy team FUT, their form even before the Major invite cut off has been dreadful.

A stat presented by Professeur on the most recent episode of HLTV Confirmed highlighted this the best - paiN have played just 14 games since Austin, winning six. And those wins came against Rare Atom, Astralis, NIP, BIG, HEROIC, and Virtus bloody pro.

Not exactly the form of a team that has been granted one of only eight invites to Stage 3 of the Major.

Of course, there’s something to be said about the strength of the rest of the Americas region - and it is pretty poor - but is this really something that should happen in a system that was designed to get the best teams over the course of the season to the biggest tournament of that season?

Just something to think about.