Valve unveils exceptions granted for 2025 events

8-1-2025 10:44

Several events have been granted exceptions to operate outside of some of the strict requirements of the new rules.

The next two EPL seasons have been granted limited exceptions to new invite rules

Several 2025 events have been given limited exceptions by Valve to operate outside of some of the specific rules outlined in the "tournament operation requirements" rulebook.

Transparency around these exceptions had been lacking until now, but a newly released document on Valve's GitHub page, "tournament exceptions," details the list of tournaments and the specific exceptions they have been given.

These exceptions give the TO some flexibility, tend to produce more sorting data than the minimum requirements, and most importantly do not go against the spirit of the requirements

Valve

The document also explains Valve's reasoning behind these exceptions. "We allow events to operate outside of [the tournament operation requirements] in some cases, provided the exceptions are known to us and explicitly approved," the document begins.

"The following are exceptions we have explicitly made, because they give the tournament operator some flexibility, tend to produce more sorting data than the minimum requirements of our guidelines, and most importantly, do not go against the spirit of the requirements."

The list includes tournaments hosted by the three main tier-one organizers, ESL, BLAST, and PGL, and a few others. Most of them have exceptions revolving around invite rules, such as the two ESL Pro Leagues, BLAST Opens, and three of the four PGL events.

BLAST have also been given an exception to run Rivals as a "Wildcard event" — which can circumvent some of the rules for tier-one events entirely — after hosting only two tier-one events beforehand rather than the required three.

A few smaller events have also been allowed to operate despite being announced after the deadline has passed (a year in advance for tier-one events and three months for tier-two).

The full list published on January 7 can be found below:

ESL Pro League Season 21
- May directly invite some teams based on their performance in previous Pro League Seasons

ESL Pro League Season 22
- The event may invite additional wildcard rosters to the closed qualifier

IEM Dallas
- NA and SA may be applied as VRS filters despite not being official regions

Esports World Cup 2025
- May invite the winner of Hero Esports ACL in lieu of one VRS invitation

BLAST Rivals
- May run one Wildcard event after two Tier 1 events instead of three

BLAST Open & PGL Bucharest/Astana/Belgrade
- May run regional VRS qualifiers to fill four positions in lieu of VRS invitations for position 13-16 in their event. The qualifiers cover Europe, Asia, NA and SA.

- Each Qualifier covers at least 16 VRS teams beyond those already invited to the event, in the respective region

- NA and SA are applied as VRS filters despite not being official regions, provided each receive an equal number of invitations to the main event and 16+ VRS invitations to the qualifier

Hero Esports ACL
- May run a Tier 1 Asia event announced after the deadline has passed

Launders LAN
- May announce/operate with shorter timeframe than required for Tier 2 events

BrisVegas LAN
- May announce/operate with shorter timeframe than required for Tier 2 events

launders lan mentioned

2025-01-08 10:45

265

9 replies

one week in and we are already not upholding the rules, greattt exceptions are bad, because it means the original system is flawed

2025-01-08 10:51

7 replies

Like volvo cars, they be changing rules mid major since "wrong" teams won.

2025-01-08 11:06

1 reply

yes thats what happened, they were ripping their hair out because big one as opposed to enforcing the rules to be consistent with the exact same rules used for copenhagen

2025-01-08 12:49

why are transitioning to an entirely new system, why would you want to be needlessly anal about deadlines and invites? ie. the next pro league not having to undo invites doesnt mean the system is flawed because they are gonna follow the rules next year when they have had time to implement them. Not cancelling entire tournaments because they miss a deadline by a little bit doesnt mean the system is flawed unless you think deadlines shouldnt exist

3 replies

anal?

2025-01-08 12:41

2 replies

shouldve known that wasnt the word to use on HLTV

2025-01-08 12:48

Where 98% of user's only contact with sex in their lives has been memes on twitch chat

2025-01-08 14:03

The exceptions in question: regional qualifiers and inviting winners/playoff teams of previous events. And it was disscussed to hell and back that "wildcard invites" have strict definitions. Oh, so awful!

2025-01-08 11:09

thank goodness this is the Launders LAN mention we got and not this dust2.us/news/56672/mass-tech-issues-at-..

2025-01-08 11:15

texas esport capital

2025-01-08 10:46

'IEM Dallas - NA and SA may be applied as VRS filters despite note being official regions' They did this because no EU teams are going to Dallas this year, busy schedule no time for NA.

2025-01-08 10:47

15 replies

I think you’re wrong, most top teams will pick IEM Dallas over PGL Astana to prepare for the Austin Major.

2025-01-08 11:03

11 replies

Astana > Bootcamp in EU > Austin Major.

2025-01-08 11:12

In what world a ceo of an org will agree to his team missing a 1.25 million dollar tournament for a 300k one lol there is just no way It’s a business first of all and the ceo wants this team he’s been investing money in to benefit him. Unfortunately sometimes what the players want is different to what the ceo wants, and in that case, you do what the man paying you tells you to do… And ceos will care about high paying tourneys especially now when the system in tournament prize benefits the players and takes away from the orgs

2025-01-08 11:28

8 replies

In the one in which ESL has bonuses for teams that participate in all their torunaments, coincidentallh it is the world we live in

2025-01-08 11:47

Do those bonuses count for VRS? I personally think going to NA for less travel would be better, but I guess they won't be doing that.

2025-01-08 12:44

yes as far as we know the org prize pool contributes to the VRS so its more like a 250 k difference (because the orgs get 700k in their prize pool) instead of a 1,000,000 difference. that combined with the fact its right next to the major is going to minimize crazy travel time and jet lag for the players at the most important event of the season.

2025-01-08 13:23

Also we don't know when the lock in date for Major seeding is. So the 250k difference might not matter that much in terms of rankings, but it might also be big difference for teams who are having difficulties.

2025-01-08 15:25

This is simply not true, different TOs and different tournaments have different prize ratios as in what goes to players and what goes to the org. You have multiple articles on HLTV to research this from and it's been talked a lot during many HLTV Confirmed episodes. Dallas' $300k is players' prize money, but orgs' prize money for the event is $700k + ESL has Annual Club Incentive that rewards orgs for viewership exposure at ESL events during the year. PGL prize money goes mostly to players afaik, not sure exactly what the split is.

2025-01-08 12:06

Where does it say the 300k prize pool is only for the players? The incentives are a big + but those pgls are too tempting… I also don’t know where you made up that Pgl gives majority of prize pool to the players…

2025-01-08 16:27

hltv.org/news/40576/club-financial-incen.. its a way better deal for the orgs to do esl events. they only take usually a 10% or less cut of players regular prize money. but esl has most of the money for the smaller events dedicated to the org directly. plus PGL is only offering accommodation rather then extra appearance fees and stuff like blast and esl are doing. pgl are banking on the players forcing the orgs hand.

2025-01-09 13:32

Probably in the world where almost all of the prize money goes to the players anyways so the org doesn't care about the prize money outside of the VRS points that it provides

2025-01-08 15:32

Donk said that they dont know yet depend what good teams dicide to play but seem like many are going to choose dallas

2025-01-08 14:24

ESL have locked 10 of the 16 spots in for Europe, somebody will be traveling.

2025-01-08 15:42

NiP vs Spirit academy will be a nice final

2025-01-08 15:44

or, way more likely, "we don't want all Americas spots going to Brazilian teams" which would be a bit of a risk

2025-01-08 19:38

may may may

yes dear

2025-01-08 10:55

LAUNDERS LAN ON TOP

2025-01-08 10:49

So basically this new ranking system is useless? If they're allowing tournaments that doesn't follow their requirements and still able to give out points, then it's just the same semi franchising as before

4 replies

exactly

2025-01-08 10:52

kinda, but with more control of Valve. They basically get to play police who gets exceptions and who doesnt. We'll see how well that works and decide then if its a good or a bad thing

2025-01-08 10:54

Not really. The important thing about the rules, which is that qualifications must be merit based, is still the same. They're just giving some TOs flexibility in how they do things. 80-90% of places at T1 tournaments are still going to be given out based on VRS.

2025-01-08 10:58

Allowing flexibility in things like announcing events after a deadline aren't completely horrible. Most of these exceptions were announced by the TOs well in advanced, so teams have known what to expect anyway.

Cool to see the Hero Esports ACL being used for EWC, hope it turns out good

2025-01-08 10:50

Whats hero esports acl? First ive heard of it and i stalk asian tourneys. Another saudi plant?

I think its saudi money + the chinese guy (forgot his name) that works with kennys, it was announced a while ago (twitter @esportsacl_) but no specifics about date, teams or format yet

2025-01-08 11:16

Dont know if this is kennys related because the chinese to thats gonna organise it is vspo so unless that chinese rich guy is related to that org then no. Hero esports seems to be a mobile esports to trying to branch to more titles.

2025-01-08 11:42

I just heard somewhere it was a partnership or he was helping fund it but couldve been wrong, I never looked into it. Either way I think it's gonna be good for the asian scene

2025-01-08 12:23

Hey, we have strict new rules for orgs. Never mind, pretty much no one have to obey these rules anyway.

2025-01-08 11:00

did you read the post or just the title

2025-01-08 11:17

Also brisvegas lol. I'll let it slide since vrs is fcking oce up this year.

2025-01-08 11:01

2025-01-08 11:05

Valve should keep themselves away from any tournament regulations and just focus on updating and improving the game.

Thats a big W

2025-01-08 11:44

Anyone complaining didnt read the article all the exceptions given are a good thing for the scene. And valve giving these exceptions for TOs to make their events better is also a good thing.

2025-01-08 11:50