messioso points out significant issues with prizepools on HLTV and their impact on the Valve Regional Standings

Graham "messioso" Pitt took to X on July 25th to discuss potential issues he found with Valve's use of HLTV's information to distribute Valve Regional Standings (VRS) points.

First, messioso pointed out that HLTV had not added the prize money for Stage 1 of the BLAST.tv Austin Major, and pondered if that could affect invites for the teams who fell short of Stage 2. Teams that were eliminated in Stage 2 each received $10,000, which bolstered their VRS points. Meanwhile, teams that were eliminated in Stage One of the Major did not have the $5,000 worth of prize money they earned denoted, meaning teams that fell in Stage One earned significantly less points.

messioso then noted that IEM Cologne Stage 1 now has prize money in place of slots in the next round as a prize, as has been the case in the past. COL's GM stated that there are potential integrity issues, as events with prize money in the early stages will now hold approximately 25% more value than events that only denoted slots in later stages as prize money.

However, messioso did later find out that HLTV were not sent the same information that was sent to teams that attended the Major. Privately, the Major teams were told that teams eliminated in Stage 1 would receive $5,000, Stage 2 eliminations would receive $10,000, while teams that fell in Stage 3 would receive $15,000.

On the other hand, the public information, which HLTV used, made no mention of prize money for teams that were eliminated in the first stage. This money seemed to have been transferred to the Stage 3 eliminations, as the public document shows that they were to receive $20,000 compared to $15,000.

This information left Pitt wondering how this mismatch of information could have affected the VRS invites that were sent out in July and thus are missing out on even more critical VRS points. Additionally, the concerns raised by Pitt highlight continued issues present with Valve using a third-party (HLTV) as their data provider for their official rankings and the overall decentralized and often confusing world of the VRS despite it being an essential part of the circuit that decides invites for all relevant events.