by Ahead of the penultimate round of the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: European RMR B, Valve announced Shanghai Major elimination stage qualification rule changes, sparking outrage among fans and the Counter-Strike 2 teams.
While the Shangahi Major 2024 Europe RMR A ended without major surprises, the second European RMR has featured a handful of upsets, resulting in two unlikely teams, 3DMAX and BIG, securing the top two spots in the Swiss Stage.
According to the originally announced rules, this should give both a direct invite to the Perfect World Shanghai Major elimination stage.
But that is no longer guaranteed after Valve’s rule change on Friday.
As stated by Valve, the elimination stage invites will not be handed out based on the teams’ placement in the RMR and instead on the Valve Regional Standings (VRS).
With the rulebook change, placing top-four in the European RMRs no longer qualifies teams for the Major’s second stage.
Moreover, there will no longer be fourth-place deciders.
This goes against Perfect World’s initially announced rules, which, according to the Chinese tournament organiser, were confirmed by Valve before the start of the RMR.
While rule change should not affect the outcome of EU RMR A, things could be different in EU RMR B, where two outsiders—BIG and 3MAX—punched their Major tickets early.
Crazy to change rules mid tournament.. life is unfair sometimes but just another challenge to accept and to overcome. We still qualified and im proud of our result here so far. We will play sooner than expected but surely we will play our hearts out ??
— tabseN (@tabseNcs) November 22, 2024
By potentially denying BIG and 3DMAX a spot in the elimination stage, the mid-tournament rule change raises serious questions about the integrity of the RMR.
And while it is still possible for BIG and 3DMAX to keep their elimination stage spots, it will mostly depend on other teams not qualifying.
The unrest among the Counter-Strike community and teams is justifiable; however, handing out elimination stage spots based on Valve Regional Standings is not a new rule—it was already followed for the season’s first Major, PGL Major Copenhagen 2024.
Affected teams were sent the following statement:
“It was previously communicated that the Europe A and B RMRs would play a tiebreaker to decide the 4th and 5th place advancement spots which determined opening and elimination stage placements at the Major.
“This tiebreaker and its corresponding format of how teams advance from the RMRs has been seen in past Majors before, and its execution in Shanghai was discussed and confirmed with Valve ahead of time.
“Today Valve requested us to cancel this tiebreaker going forward, facilitating a full transition to the VRS system for 2024 and onwards.
“Additional to this change, for sorting teams qualifying from the Europe RMRs into the Major itself: an update to the Valve Regional Standings will come after the conclusion of the RMRs, and all qualifying teams, including those who had already completed the Europe A RMR, will be sorted before the Shanghai Major solely based on the VRS instead.”
