PGL in discussions to correct RMR scheduling clashes*

9-2-2022 17:56

The late announcement of the qualification schedule has left little time to deal with clashes.

Update: PGL announced changes to dates shortly after the release of the article.

The Europe Open Qualifier 1 has been moved to the break days of IEM Katowice, while Europe Open Qualifier 2, North America Open Qualifier 1, and South America Open Qualifier 1 have been postponed to March 3-4. The RMR Europe B overlap with BLAST Showdown wasn't addressed. Find the full schedule here.

It was announced today via Twitter that PGL will "adjust the Open Qualifiers dates to allow every team to register and fight for a place at the RMR event." This statement comes in the wake of a plethora of complaints about the announced qualification schedule for the PGL Major Antwerp, due to take place May 9-22.

PGL is looking at ways to avoid qualifier overlap

There are two specific clashes that have generated the bulk of the discussion so far. One is connected to the first open qualifiers for both the Americas and the Europe Regional Major Ranking event (RMR), which are currently due to take place at the same time as IEM Katowice.

This could potentially affect any Americas team competing at IEM Katowice, bar FURIA who have already secured their spot at the RMR as a top-eight finisher at the previous Major. Should any other Americas team reach the playoffs at Katowice, they would miss out on one of the two available open qualifiers for their region.

RMR tournaments to take place in Romania in April; qualifiers start in February

European teams that would miss out on at least one chance to qualify for the RMR if the dates aren't adjusted are OG, BIG, fnatic, Sprout, Wisla Krakow, as the group stage of the LAN in Poland clashes with the first, and the playoffs clash with the second European qualifier.

Overlapping events

IEM Katowice: February 15-27
Europe Qualifier 1: February 19-20
Europe Qualifier 2: February 26-27
NA and SA Qualifier 1: February 26-27

[Update] New Dates

IEM Katowice: February 15-27
Europe Qualifier 1: February 22-23
Europe Qualifier 2: March 1-2
NA and SA Qualifier 1: March 3-4

The other schedule issue is with the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown, which is currently set to take place at the same time as the second Europe RMR.

The only team this affects at the moment is Ninjas in Pyjamas, who are due to play both events, however the full team list for BLAST is not yet decided, so teams like Gambit, Entropiq and MOUZ may also be affected if they receive an invite or qualify to the Spring Showdown. Unlike in the case of the Americas clash, where at least a second open qualifier is available, there is no alternative to playing the Europe RMR for Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Overlapping events

Europe RMR B: April 21-24
BLAST Spring Showdown: April 20-24

There most obvious solution to overlaps is adjusting dates, and rumours suggest that work is ongoing to move the first NA and SA open qualifiers so they no longer clash with IEM Katowice playoffs. Complexity General Manager Graham Pitt suggested them to be moved to dates of the first two EPL groups (12-13 or 19-20 March), as no NA or SA teams are competing then.

As for the Europe RMR clash, the most likely resolution is BLAST postponing the start of the Spring Showdown, as the tournament organizer was painted in the corner with the crucial Major-qualifying event being dropped on the days reserved for their tournament. BLAST has reportedly been working on a solution alongside the teams involved before the RMR dates were officially announced on Wednesday.

RMR tournaments to take place in Romania in April; qualifiers start in February

These clashes are but the headline stories amongst a number of other complaints surrounding the Major qualification announcement. Other criticism includes the marginalisation of the Asia-Pacific region and the lack of clarity surrounding the nationality and region locking rules, specifically whether SA teams can compete in the NA open qualifiers for the Americas RMR.

Update: PGL have now updated their website to confirm that SA teams will be allowed to participate in the NA open qualifiers.

In reality, many of these complaints stem from the same central issue: the lateness of the Major announcement. The specific details for RMRs were announced a mere ten days before the first open qualifier, giving teams little time to raise potential issues or plan their schedule, and limiting what tournament organizers can do about the event calendar that has been set for months already.

Updates on the scheduling issues are expected in the coming days.

good

2022-02-09 17:57

3 replies

Major qualifiers making way for Blast event lul

2022-02-09 18:08

2 replies

lul

2022-02-09 18:41

1 reply

2022-02-10 20:02

1st

7 replies

xaxaxaxaxa

2022-02-09 17:58

noble prize

2022-02-09 18:04

not first :(

2022-02-09 18:36

unlucky

2022-02-09 18:40

Hmm got beaten by Chinese again.

2022-02-09 19:00

sh*t, unluck :(

2022-02-09 19:11

2022-02-10 09:23

Nice

Kick them from rmr then

pgl 🤡🤡🤡 at its finest 👌👌👌

5 replies

What?

2022-02-09 18:37

Its valve's fault u bozo

1. no 2. dont care 3. didnt ask

2022-02-09 18:42

1.yes

2022-02-09 18:43

So you agree with him?

2022-02-09 18:45

nobody want PGL

how's pgl fault that the calendar is made by esl and blast and no other to can slip any other event?

2022-02-09 18:01

4 replies

2022-02-09 18:10

It's not even ESL and Blast's fault. How could they know that Valve would announce the RMR qualifiers 10 days beforehand? lol

2022-02-09 18:15

true, valve could've announced it earlier, but it would also be helpful if esl and blast would talk with the other to's in making the calendar

2022-02-09 18:16

valve is a company of lazy dog, just like last year they only release top 8 team signatures because they collect them too late and there is no time to make stickers for all teams

2022-02-10 11:10

pgl is very mediocre TO, dont understand why valve wont let BLAST themselves host a major as they are consistently produce better events for viewers.

2022-02-09 17:59

9 replies

Maybe because blast doesn't want major yet?

2022-02-09 18:05

maybe because the only to's bidding for major were esl and pgl?

2022-02-09 18:06

Blast: runs small tournaments (normally week long with low number of teams) Major: massive tournament (weeks long with 24 teams plus all the minors and open qualifiers) The major is quite simply not compatible with their product / production specification. Can they do it? Sure but their company is not really built for it.

I'd really love to see a Blast Major, but f all people that are acting like PGL stole this one from them and are antagonizing

2022-02-09 18:20

2022-02-10 11:09

Because TO's bid for the major. ValvE can't force someone to do the major, use brain for once

2022-02-09 18:38

Pgl has the money and resources rn

'dont understand why valve wont let BLAST' because blast doesn't want to host a major

2022-02-09 19:15

blast dont want

2022-02-10 11:50

we will send mail pigeons to every team and TO

2022-02-09 18:00

classic PGL, fucking up all the time

Nice, at least they listened to feedback,scheduling was the only complaint i've had so far

One thing that I think we should genuinely credit PGL for, is that they always listen to community feedback. Even in the last major, no mattee what issue was complained about by the community, be it about the cast being from Stockholm itself all the way to the various tech suggestions, they always tried to cater to community demands. Respect for that, but they still have a long way to go before they become a good TO.

2022-02-09 18:02

ofc they have, people clown on them only because of production issues at a single event

2022-02-09 18:03

Yeah but I think this is also a good viewpoint: Why do we NEED to complain to fix these things when they could've been good in the first place? Like, they're probably gonna have a better trophy this year but... why was last year's trophy absolute dogwater?

2022-02-09 18:25

2022-02-10 16:37

remember that ESL would never do this and that you're unrightfully clowning on PGL because they hosted one bad tournament they're always listening to feedback unlike some

8 replies

also esl and blast have some fault here, they just use the entire calendar as they want and it's hard for other tournament organizers to run events without things like this happening, but people are only shaming pgl like they're at fault about everything

+1 just a circlejerk of TOs imposing themselves everywhere because orgs signed the dotted line in the partnership agreement and no regulations to prevent it whatsoever

It is actually Valve's fault because they don't talk to ESL etc about their schedule.

2022-02-09 20:47

One bad tournament? Krakow was shit as well because of bad planning. Well, maybe shit is too much, but so many stupid mistakes by PGL.

2022-02-09 18:09

Krakow was 4 years ago

2022-02-09 20:13

ehhh yes? so? they had 4 years to correct things and they couldnt

2022-02-10 01:18

By that logic Brazil had 60 years to prepare for 2014 WC

2022-02-10 16:40

Oh yes, definitely. What is your point? It is not actually 60yrs, but about 5-10. Should be enough for a country to prepare it.

2022-02-11 14:32

LOL

To be fair, this is fault of Valve for leaving the decision and announcement of the major so late. And in lesser extend it is fault of esl and blast who fill the calendar so full that rmr and qualifiers for rmr, which they knew will come do not fit anywhere properly. PGL is in no fault in here In the end its the decision of the teams what will be the priorities. For example any team that manages to get to Katowice playoffs likely won't need but one of the two remaining qualifier which they would be able to do. But they just want to be able to participate in everything if possible.

NA would gona last in katowice, dont need to reschulde

Maybe don't force players to have the experimental gene therapy if you truly care about player safety.

2022-02-09 19:02

what?

2022-02-09 23:10

twitter.com/pglesports/status/1491459950..

Same day response. Good job PGL.

2022-02-09 18:19

Open qualifiers dates Look better now, I hope they agree with Blast so that the European RMR B does not go along with the showdown

2022-02-09 18:26

The fact there even needs to be a discussion is incredible

2022-02-09 18:17

yekindar is streaming rn btw

2022-02-09 18:24

Valve has one decision to make, neither: - take back the entire competitive ecosystem control (like Riot do with LOL & Valorant). - let ESL & Blast control the competitive ecosystem including majors.

2022-02-09 18:22

No, they should never do that. CSGO esport solely lives off third party tournaments. If you make Valve only tournaments you get maybe 2 tournaments every year. Its easy to take LoL and Valorant as success stories when other games like OW failed despite putting absolutely everything into esports. Valve doesnt even fix small bugs that have in the game for years which takes maybe two 40h/week employees, do you really think they can be assed to organize tournaments? I think cs:go became so great because of all the community contributions that are possible, like maps, skins, tournaments, server hosting (no new game does that) and open engine. You can't even host your own tournament in valorant without using Riots servers, so all you get is shit spectating from built in spectator system.

2022-02-09 18:32

+1 it could work if they created a whole department dedicated to csgo & esports but they won't do it. even if it would work im not a fan of devs running everything. OWL was a disaster imho, sc2 centralization wasn't great for the scene either. im not sure how things work with LOL & valorant but i've always been skeptical of that model.

2022-02-09 18:48

+1 Really nice reply much thoughtful

2022-02-09 19:05

Yup, we are clear on that. For now, they must not get back the control of the competitive ecosystem. So letting ESL/DH/FaceIT & Blast the control of the entire competitive ecosystem is what everyone need. My point was: the RMR circuit was a good idea, it still let a few space for some surprise but the teams who qualified to the major were those who could be consistent. For some bullshit reason (cause they can't plan correctly), they step back and use the old Minor system with a "new" name and merging regions together (NA/SA, EUW/CIS, Asia/Oceania).

2022-02-10 08:04

I think one major issue with the RMR circuit was that it was dependent on so many parties. You had to look for matching planned tournaments and if there are none, create extra tournaments so they are spaced out. Then you had to make sure that each of these tournaments are somewhat consistent in their rule set and execution (which they weren't). Now they only depend on one TO, with the circuit it was like 4. I think the minor is a good format, just looking from Valves view, its less work for them and way less potential mistakes. Sure, for the viewer more tournaments are great but in competitive sport it mostly counts how good you are right now and not the average of your (maybe changing) team over a year.

2022-02-10 17:55

2022-02-09 18:23

rip na most of the brazilian and argentine teams will take the sa and na slots.

And people were complaining about PGL... NOW APOLOGY TO THEM.

2022-02-09 18:31

should i be surprised?

16 BR/SA team in Americas RMR

2022-02-09 18:53

PGL already being PGL

Why there is only 4 team RMR event in Asia I see there are many teams and tbh Middle east is the most wasted spot even oceania since Renegades and EXTREMUM are gone.

2022-02-09 19:13

Because right now Asia only have 2 spots at the Major, which means the RMR is limited to 4 teams. The open qualifiers are open to everyone, though. If they get more spots at the major the RMR event will also get bigger, see hltv.org/news/33211/valves-major-ruleboo..

2022-02-09 20:11

noice

2022-02-09 19:28

cool

2022-02-09 19:58

Yeah, it's not like they had the entire player break to plan this shit properly, nah, just slap some random fucking dates in there and change them later, like..? How does this even happen in 2022

2022-02-09 20:14

VOLVO: "I wIlL pUt ThE rEgIoN wItH tHe MoSt AuDiEnCe In ThE mIdDlE oF tHe WeEk."

2022-02-09 20:56

monday to thursday is to fuck

doubt it is

2022-02-09 23:24

at least the initial schedule shows this, Americas between April 11th and 14th, I hope they rethink this

2022-02-10 00:44

I doubt America’s is the most populair, Eu cis is

2022-02-10 00:48

Valve fixed plz PGL. Irresponsible organizer of PGL. The schedule has been planned out for a long time, they put qualifications in conflict with other tournaments. Let Major hold Blast - it will be an unforgettable sight. Blast knows how to put on a show.

2022-02-09 21:52

teams qualifying directly to rmr from open qualifiers rn?

2022-02-09 22:01

fk blast is scripted tournament anyway

2022-02-09 23:07

We all expect PGL don't fucked up this time. PGL Krakow (2017) PGL Stockholm (2021) PGL Bucharest (TI 2021, Dota 2) We can be worried about this upcoming major. Concerning the location, despite Belgium are not a huge place of esport. Antwerpen is close from Amsterdam & Brussels (1 hour with trains).

2022-02-10 08:14