YaLLa adjust 2025 circuit to ensure compliance with Valve rules

The organizers adjusted their circuit after the ranked status of their first 2025 event was removed due to non-compliance with Valve's requirements.

The organizers of YaLLa Compass have released an update to their 2025-2026 circuit, making several adjustments in order to ensure their compliance with Valve's tournament operating requirements in force from this year.

This comes after Valve removed the ranked status of YaLLa Compass Winter Contenders earlier this month. It had been discovered that YaLLa defined the three-stage, invite-only tournament as an "open qualifier" and ignored several eligible teams in their invitation process, claiming to use specific filtering criteria, which is against the rules for tier-one events.

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The ongoing Winter series will go ahead as an unranked event, while YaLLa's future events in 2025 have been redefined and their invite processes changed so that they follow the new rules.

The previously announced Compass LAN events in Doha, Qatar (April 16-20) and Dubai, UAE (November 19-23) will still serve as tier 1, standalone tournaments with a closed qualifier leading up to each.

The main change here is the invite process to the two events' closed qualifiers. Qatar's qualifier will have 12 teams instead of 16 and no longer feature teams coming from the now-unranked Winter event, and it will become invite-only by Valve's Regional Standings (VRS). Dubai's qualifier will feature 16 teams instead of 12, mostly coming from VRS instead of 6 from previous YaLLa tournaments.

The Contenders events, taking place in May and August, have been redefined as tier 2 events. They will be played in the same format as before, only with similar changes to the invite procedure as the tier-one events in order to comply.

Although tier 2 by definition, the Contenders will also still serve as qualifiers for Dubai, with the winner of each tournament securing a place in the closed qualifier. This is allowed in Valve's requirements as per section 3.2.1: "Licensee may additionally invite to the Closed Qualifier any Rosters who won a Tier 2 event in the preceding 6 months."

You can see the adjusted circuit in detail below:

YaLLa Compass Winter (Jan 13-March 12)
- Now unranked event
- To go ahead as planned

YaLLa Compass Qatar (April 16-20)
- Status: Tier 1 event
- Prizemoney: $600,000 + $75,000 in closed qualifier
- Location: Doha, Qatar
- Teams: 12 in main event, 12 in closed qualifier
- Invites: 6 teams to main, 12 to closed qualifier by VRS
- Invitation date: 60 days before main event (February)

YaLLa Compass Contenders #1 (April 28-May 12)
- Status: Tier 2 event
- Prizemoney: $25,000
- Location: Online
- Teams: 16 in main event, 16 in closed qualifier
- Invites: 8 to main event, 16 to closed qualifier by VRS starting from rank 9
- Invitation date: 30 days before main event (April)

YaLLa Compass Contenders #2 (July 21-September 3)
- Status: Tier 2 event
- Prizemoney: $25,000
- Location: Online
- Teams: 16 in main event, 16 in closed qualifier
- Invites: 8 to main event, 16 to closed qualifier by VRS starting from rank 9
- Invitation date: 30 days before main event (July)

YaLLa Compass Dubai (November 19-23)
- Status: Tier 1 event
- Prizemoney: $600,000 + $75,000 in closed qualifier
- Location: Dubai, UAE
- Teams: 12 in main event, 16 in closed qualifier
- Invites: 6 teams to main, 12 to closed qualifier by VRS + 2 Contenders winners and maximum 2 wildcard invites to closed qualifier
- Invitation date: 60 days before main event (September)