Valve says tournament seeding must be based on the same VRS used for invites, pros criticize it

Valve updated the rulebook on the night of March 6th, making one crucial change that concerns how tournament organizers make the seeding for their events. From 2026 onwards, tier-one tournaments will have to use the same VRS used for invites when making the tournament seeding.

This update was first spotted by HLTV's Editor-in-Chief Milan "Striker" Švejda and CS2 pros and notable members of the community reacted to it immediately.

As pointed out by Striker himself, this isn't ideal because sometimes invites are sent out up to four months in advance. In cases like this, the tournament seeding wouldn't necessarily reflect the teams' form coming to the event.

Astralis' IGL Casper "cadiaN" Møller was one of the first to criticize the new rule.

Marsborne's head coach Hunter "Lucid" Tucker promptly asked Valve to revert this change.

As popular talent James "BanKs" Banks said, this could easily be improved if Valve allows tournaments to use VRS for seeding on the day that the event starts, instead of using a much older version of VRS.

Given that this rulebook change will only affect tier-one tournaments that start in March 2026, there's plenty of time for Valve to revisit this rule based on feedback from the pros.