Flashpoint to return in May as an EU RMR tournament

Registration for the open qualifiers is already available.

Flashpoint will return on May 10 as the first Regional Major Ranking (RMR) event of 2021 in Europe, the league's parent company, B Site, announced on Friday. The online tournament will see 16 teams compete in a double-elimination bracket for points towards the RMR table, which will be used to determine the participants of the 2021 Fall Major.

Eleven slots will be filled by the top teams in the 2020 RMR standings as announced by Valve in January, with the other five places being determined by a qualifying system. HLTV.org knows that FACEIT and Flashpoint will reach out to the players who represented North - the No.11 side in the EU RMR table - in DreamHack Open Fall to discuss whether they will be able to field an eligible roster. The Danish organisation ceased all operations in February, with two members of the team that competed in the final RMR tournament of 2020 now playing in a new lineup, while Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson is currently representing Dignitas. René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg and Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen haven't found new teams yet.

Flashpoint 3 will kick off on May 10

Flashpoint 3 will be the first of three RMR events that will be held in Europe in the months leading up to the 2021 Major, which will be hosted by PGL in Stockholm between October 23 and November 7. The tournament will mark a significant shift from the first two Flashpoint seasons, which featured the league's founding partners and a small number of qualified sides.

"We’re thrilled to be working with Valve as an RMR event as we approach the Stockholm Major," Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, vice-president of B Site and commissioner of Flashpoint, said in a statement. "And we’re excited to increase the quality of competition in Flashpoint while continuing our high standards for production and content. We think that Flashpoint 3 will offer fans a thrilling kick-off to the Major cycle and give brands significant exposure to the CSGO audience."

Below you can find the 11 teams that have been invited to Flashpoint 3:

Astralis
HEROIC
BIG
G2
FunPlus Phoenix
North

Vitality
Ninjas in Pyjamas
fnatic
OG
FaZe

Flashpoint tournament operations partner FACEIT will run the entire qualifying process, which will start with four open qualifiers between April 13-25, each with two spots in the closed stage on offer. The qualified teams will join eight invited sides in the closed qualifier, scheduled for April 27-30.

Teams can sign up for the open qualifiers by clicking the links below:

Qualifier #1 - April 13-15 (Register)
Qualifier #2 - April 17-18 (Register)
Qualifier #3 - April 20-22 (Register)
Qualifier #4 - April 24-25 (Register)

B Site did not state what this new competition model could mean for the future of Flashpoint. Each member organisation spent $2 million in franchise fees in early 2020 with hopes of building a more sustainable esports league. But just 14 months into the project's existence, only half of the league's eight partners still have active teams (MIBR, MAD Lions, Dignitas and FunPlus Phoenix). Cloud9 became last month the latest member organisation to take a step back from competitive Counter-Strike, citing performance issues and the financial impact of the team's prolonged stay in Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Duncan "⁠Thorin⁠" Shields stepped down from his role as Flashpoint creative director in early March after being the public face of the project for many months. In a video posted on his YouTube channel, the veteran analyst doubled down on his criticism of the member organisations for their lack of investment in the project from the start. "I was here to save CS:GO and I was here to make the best tournament," he said. "I now know that neither is possible."