Valve tweak RMR qualification system
Today Valve have published an update to their official CS:GO Major Series Supplemental Rulebook. The largest change by far is the introduction of the previously announced closed qualifiers for the RMRs with "official Regional Standings" to determine invites.
There are no specific details mentioned about the regional standings apart from the fact they will be official, as opposed to speculation that a widely accepted ranking like HLTV would be used. The new qualifiers may be held online or offline, depending on what the tournament organizers choose. If they are held online, then they will be separated into regions such as North America and South America where ping makes it necessary.
The sizes of the closed qualifiers will follow, at minimum, double the size of the number of teams advancing to the corresponding RMR, with half of the teams coming from ranking invites and the other via open qualifiers. The format for the qualifiers will also follow the same rules as the RMRs themselves. The full text for this change can be seen here:
All teams not invited to an RMR due to their position from the prior Major (i.e., Legends) will qualify via closed qualifier. The closed qualifier requirements are as follows:
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Each region will hold one closed qualifier
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The closed qualifier may be held online.
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If a region must be subdivided to accommodate ping of participating teams (e.g., AMER -> NA and SA), RMR invitations will be split evenly among the regions. If invitations cannot be evenly split, the remaining invitation(s) will be granted to the subdivided qualifier featuring the team with the highest Regional Standing.
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The closed qualifier format will follow the RMR format for the corresponding number of teams.
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The number of participating regional teams will be, at minimum, twice the number of teams who will advance to the RMR. More teams should be added to accommodate the nearest applicable tournament format.
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Half of the teams in the closed qualifier will be invited directly based on their Regional Standing. The other half are to qualify through open qualifiers.
The second largest change is the move to a minimum size of eight teams for all RMRs, which notably affects the Asia-Pacific RMR which previously only had four teams in attendance. This change will be a very welcome one, as it has been widely requested by the community surrounding the Asian CS scene. The full text for this change is the following:
The RMR format for a region is determined by the number of slots for that region. All teams not directly invited due to RMR position are to qualify in through open qualifiers. The formats are as follows:
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1 to 4 invites: 8-team double-elimination bracket
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5 to 8 invites: 16 team Swiss bracket
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9 to 16 invites: subdivide teams by Final Ranking, placing teams into two groups. The resulting groups are to use the format appropriate for that number of invites, per the above.
The third change is adding clarification on how regions (read: Europe) with more than 16 teams qualifying to the Major will allocate the extra teams. So far the assumption based on the old rules was that there would be a third smaller RMR for Europe which would determine the extra slots, but now this is no longer the case.
The new rule will see all 2-3 teams play one another in seeded single-elimination matches, with the winners of those games moving forward to the next matches. Since this leaves three teams, they will be seeded based on their Swiss performance into a gauntlet bracket where the winning team qualifies for the Major. The full text for this change is the following:
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17 to 19 invites: subdivide teams by Final Ranking, placing teams into two groups. The groups each play a 16 team Swiss bracket with 8 teams advancing. Teams with a 2-3 record play in a last-chance single-elimination Bo3 bracket, with teams from group 1 playing initial matchups against teams from group 2 following the Swiss matchup rules. After initial matchups, the subsequent format depends on the number of invites:
17 teams:
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The three remaining 3-3 teams are first sorted by difficulty score.
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The lower two teams play a best of 3 and the loser is eliminated.
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The remaining two teams play a best of 3 and the loser is eliminated.
18 teams:
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The three remaining 3-3 teams are first sorted by difficulty score.
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The lower two teams play a best of 3 and the loser is eliminated.
19 teams: all three remaining 3-3 teams.
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