Follow the race to the Major as it unfolds

24-3-2025 15:31

See at a glance what teams are safe or at risk of making it to the MRQ and the different stages of the Major in all three VRS regions.

You can follow Falcons and G2's fight for a Stage 3 invite to the Major as it happens

You can now follow the VRS race live as we head towards the Major's April 7 invite deadline, here.

The basics are simple; this ranking takes the time period from Oct 7-April 7 and accounts for all the data we have in any events that will finish before the Major invite deadline, including minimum prizemoney for ongoing events, and it takes into account natural decay by April 7.

It's a great place to follow the storylines as they unfold, such as the race between Astralis and Virtus.pro for the last Stage 2 invite from Europe, or the heated race for Stage 3 spots featuring the likes of Falcons, Natus Vincere, Eternal Fire, G2, and FaZe.

Fight for BLAST.tv Austin Major invites tenses up with three weeks to go

The tool is divided into the three VRS regions, Europe, Americas, and Asia, and subdivided by where each team would fall, be it their respective MRQs or the different stages of the Major, making it easy to follow visually.

How the Top 10 in Europe look in the ranking forecast at the time of publication

Don't care, Vitality - Spirit 2-0

2025-03-24 15:35

Let's go 3d

2025-03-24 15:31

1 reply

all we can do is hope

2025-03-24 16:34

DOWN WITH ASTRALIS

2025-03-24 15:32

Can't believe VRS is not going to get fixed before major

27 replies

What fix would you like to see?

2025-03-24 15:36

25 replies

Fixes to prevent obscure teams from attending unknown NA lans and reaching top 30 by winning them. And that is just one example of how broken this system is.

2025-03-24 15:37

17 replies

Fragadelphia isn't unknown, they have put on good international events before. That being said, what fix do you have in mind for that? Personally, I think the correct fix is having more open local LANs, so that teams in every region have an opportunity to play at events and earn VRS points. That would keep any one event from having to big of an impact.

2025-03-24 15:46

16 replies

I understand what you're saying, but first, comparing Fragadelphia to other TOs, they're fairly unknown outside of NA.* I agree with your point of having more local LANs, and I do believe that they should be worth more VRS points than the many online tournaments we already have, but, of course, it seems absurd that a team like BLUEJAYS got to top 30 just by winning a Fragadelphia event when, skill wise, they're probably not good enough for that level. Yet, how do you get more local LANs? Online tournaments are much easier to both host and attend, and I don't want the points rewards for LANs staying like how they are, look at Imperial FE, another example of a team which won a LAN and, undeservingly, got to attend T1 events where they got decimated. There are teams out there that deserve more than these fluke teams get.

2025-03-24 16:08

11 replies

Are they more or less notable than PLAYzone or LUND Esports? Both of those TOs are hosting local Tier 2 LANs in Europe, that I think are comparable to what Fragadelphia are trying to do. The things is, similar to what we are seeing even with tier 1 events, they bothered to show up when other, better NA teams could have shown up and gotten the points instead. You get the events by hosting them, it's not "easy" but someone will surely eventually recognize the value for teams here. If NiP are willing to spend thousands of dollars to fly their team to the United States for a $10,000 LAN, I think you can bet that they will show up for your local LAN in Europe too and that will drive viewership and other things that make those events possible to begin with.

2025-03-24 18:45

10 replies

I'm not too invested in the CS low tier scene, so I may have been wrong about my Fragadelphia statement, and I apologize about that The thing is, I feel like this ecosystem we have in place isn't fair, yes, teams do deserve more VRS for showing up to LANs and winning, but, come on, sure, you get more viewership from hosting bigger teams, but, I feel like having teams such as NiP attend smaller LANs for the VRS points just messes with the ecosystem, it'd be nice to see local teams rise up and duke it out between eachother than just seeing the equivalent of an atomic bomb in the form of a more prominent team showing up to hog all the points and ruin the game for these lower tier teams.

2025-03-24 18:50

9 replies

Yeah, but the thing is, while more people will tune in to watch NiP play it's highly likely that they won't win the event. No one in NA is complaining about teams from Europe traveling to play an event here. It's a net-positive for anyone serious about getting better at the game. It might be a different story if top teams were crowding out smaller teams at local LANs in Europe, but we haven't seen that happen yet.

2025-03-24 19:03

4 replies

After NiP signing up to FragVegas, we've seen M80 and Complexity sign up too, yes, they're NA teams, but I think this will set a precedent for the future when orgs want easy VRS, why grind online when you can show up to LANs to have a bigger chance of winning? I imagine a team on the brink of missing out the major attending these LANs, and it just feels wrong, it just needs a change.

2025-03-24 19:12

3 replies

I guess I don't understand why that feels wrong. How is attending a LAN event worse than playing an online event? Also, the more teams that attend an event like this, the less "easy" the VRS points become. A team on the brink of missing the major should be attending these events, along with every other team below the top 30.

2025-03-24 19:45

2 replies

You don't understand it because this guy's a contradictory idiot. He just doesn't like certain teams and doesn't like a system that challenges his conventional ideas of who's good and who's not. He says he doesn't want teams like Bluejays climbing the rankings, but he doesn't want teams like NIP climbing the rankings because he'd rather local teams did instead???? He thinks teams like NIP, M80, NRG, and Col rocking up to a lan is "easy win" compared to BC Game and OG farming CCT against Tier 3 teams???? This is a classic example of a dude who has seen a few teams he disagrees with climbing the ranking like Imperial Valk, Bluejays etc. but when the VRS balances out over time and these teams get pushed down they will never reneg on their inflammatory over-reactive comments. The VRS has issues, but it's so much better than the closed circuit bs we used to have, and the gap between the last spots at the major and the top of Tier 3 has never been closer, it's so fluid and easily allows mobility for lower teams to climb if they're good enough. And once teams and TOs recognise the importance of small lans then the ranking will become even more reliable. It doesn't help the ranking when a handful of big teams decide they're too good to play certain tournaments and grind as hard as the smaller teams, even when they're not that good (Navi, Liquid, Furia etc.) Just give the VRS time and you'll be pleasantly surprised

2025-03-24 23:04

Oh I know, but I wanted to give him a chance to share his perspective. There's nothing wrong with hearing people out. I do think that the VRS system could be improved, but it is vastly superior to the partner team system that was prevalent before and anyone who says otherwise is either blind to how much better things are now, or is just upset because a team they like isn't getting free invites anymore.

2025-03-25 14:53

I guess the hope would be that these bigger name teams attending regional LANs encourage more regional LANs to be put on which would give those smaller teams a chance to play.

2025-03-24 19:05

Like I said in #65, I think instead this will encourage more teams of higher tiers to come to small LANs to grind VRS points, it will be seen as an 'easy way out' in case of potential relegation, but we'll have to see how the situation develops.

2025-03-24 19:25

This will in turn bolster the strength and financial power of these small lans, provide an opportunity for small scenes to compete against better teams and grow small scenes. For example, one of the big lans with a focus on it now is the British Epic Lan. NIP and Complexity will both be looking to attend a lan with like a £4k prize pool in the UK where the best team is an Advanced team. The UK is a significantly stunted region for many reasons, but partly because below the top teams, no one ever gets to play anyone good, the scene isn't big enough for this lan to expand, and there's no financial incentive for any additional lans to pop up. Changes like this to the ecosystem will encourage far more grass roots potential in smaller scenes across Europe, AM, and Asia. It's taking power out of the hands of the billionaire Saudi monopoly and putting more power in the local lans that support player development, and it'll have significantly larger impact in Asia and the Americas than even the UK example above. Give it time to evolve before moaning constantly because it will come good

2025-03-24 23:10

You make quite a few convincing points, friend, however, I still believe that local LANs need a decrease in VRS gain, it's what I've been saying through all these comments, it's utterly ridiculous how some teams get to climb to ranks they can't even compete in while other deserving teams find themselves stuck in lower tiers. Let's just agree to disagree.

2025-03-24 23:21

There should be some like multiplier that decreases points earned playing lesser ranked squads. At least a tiny bandaid even if it is technically the fault of the general scene for not adapting to VRS in the 18 months they had (only that coL GM messio and maybe 4 other people know how to read in CS).

2025-03-24 16:11

If they found a smooth way to implement it maybe... but it reminds me of ESL's ranking system which used a formula that included how "good" the teams were. That formula was easy for teams to game and resulted in NA cash cups determining who got invited to Katowice, because teams realized they could play in that event and make it a bigger event than it should have been.

2025-03-24 18:57

With the current system it is kinda no different than the NA Cash Cup scheme. You can farm a bunch of LANs filled with at best maybe 1-3 top 100 teams and find yourself around the top 40+ of the VRS. If you had decent results previously you are in the mix for a t1 LAN invite and maybe even katowice.

2025-03-24 19:02

So that begs the question, what problem are you trying to solve? I think we want teams to play events and get a ranking so they can climb the ladder. I don't think their value should be gatekept by who bothers to show up, that defeats the purpose. I think the problem is that there currently aren't enough events to farm points, which is why one local LAN in NA had such an outsized impact on the ranking.

2025-03-24 19:07

The biggest fix would be that teams could be formed from nothing and still qualify to the major on merit, instead we have a system where buying out a core of a team ensures you LAN tournaments and points because of them, for example FaZe or G2 have both not won against T1 talent enough to warrant any kind of guaranteed major berth, but they both have a guarantee because they get to attend every single tournament, and Falcons are the best example of buying out a team and having a single good result guaranteeing you a major berth

2025-03-24 15:41

6 replies

What kind of fix are you looking for? Just open qualifiers for the major or something that would impact all of the events?

Open qualifiers into closed qualifiers like we used to have. It was a perfect situation but Valve didn't want to solve the cheater problem.

I think Valve are also trying to make the major cycle much shorter now with a very full event calendar. The MRQs are much smaller than even the RMRs were, and will be held in less than a weeks time. I would be in favor of open qualifiers being held again, but I do like the VRS system, because of the fact that the entire season of events now hold weight for teams trying to get to the major.

2025-03-24 15:49

The entire season isn't weighed still, they just made the active season of play 3 months long, despite it counting 6 months of results. AFAIK Spirit could have never dropped out of the major no matter if they lost every single match they played in this time. We used to see VP, the major winner, DROP OUT of the major because they were in a rut that bad, and it was completely deserved. It's an incest filled system that always feeds more results to the top teams because the VRS ensures every top team is always at every tournament no matter what their form is. We used to have open qualis for a lot of the tournaments that propped up teams like Movistar Riders or Saw, and the top teams were either invited by the TO's ranking or HLTV ranking, ergo, merit. The money aspect is completely asinine to me. Money is completely irrelevant to what the players do in the server, and yet it's an aspect of RANKING.

2025-03-24 16:00

Every event (and therefore the entire season) is counted, it just may not be towards the closest major. The events falling after the Austin Major cutoff will count towards the second major of 2025. Just as events in that latter part of 2024 are still impacting this major. The issues you see with top teams continuing to get invites were already happening with partner team invites and TO rankings that had the exact same (or worse) issue that VRS has with favor teams that already go to all of the events. The big difference as you point out is that the major is using an invite system now instead of being at least partially open qualifier based. I think that's a fair critique of how the Major is being held, but not the VRS system specifically. The prize money isn't a perfect system, but it does make sure that the system gives weight to events that teams would or should consider more important. It's worse than HLTV's ranking system (which is secret), but better than ESL's system (which was easily gamed).

2025-03-24 18:33

Teams can form from nothing and qualify for the major. They start out at a disadvantage but it's possible if they're good enough Faze have taken the scalps of the likes of Astralis, Mouz, Eternal Fire, G2, they have proven to be better than the teams behind them. G2 maybe a bit less so, but they have won just enough to stop them from dwindling down completely. The system has flaws, but it's improving and it's closer to perfection than it is to being as bad as you make it out to be

2025-03-24 17:03

Will gods reign reach the stage 3?

2025-03-25 07:53

Crazy how Falcons is #6

2025-03-24 15:33

Price of G2 and Navi ignoring PGL Cluj- Napoca

2025-03-24 16:22

Would be nice to also see HLTV Rankings for the respective teams on this page too.

praying for astralis downfall

2025-03-24 15:34

5 replies

Praying for G2 Downfall. ohh wait, its allready here. Nevermind #ToTheStars

2025-03-24 20:00

LOL what, look at ASStralis and comedian

2025-03-24 20:09

LOL what. look at G0 and Slax

2025-03-24 20:51

nt devorce

2025-03-24 20:55

NICE TRY HATER

2025-03-24 21:10

Falclowns in stage 3 is a fck joke. Get them to mrq I guarantee you they won't even get to a major

Most great teams won't because online cs is a shit show.

2025-03-24 16:32

G2 skipped pgl cluj napoca, deserved to be stage 2 over falcons.

Nah, if you want to get invited to stage 3 you either have to be an elite team like Sprit or you have to be a team like Eternal Fire that's willing to grind events.

2025-03-24 15:38

I aint saying falcons deserve to be there, the only team who shouldve replaced falcons is g2 (faze is a big fat joke). But g2 skipped cluj and its their consequence/punishment

How is G2 better than Falcons?

2025-03-24 16:09

G2 is the best t2 team dude

Faze is far from a joke. Remember that, other than the loss to EF, Faze is the team that has come the closest to beating the current Vitality. They were 12-8 up in the decider and should have won that game. Yes, right now they look broken, but they can still beat any given team on any given day if all five players pop off at the same time. There is a huge amount of skill on that team.

2025-03-24 18:02

That was a good joke, made me laugh real hard. Try that in stand up comedy or smth not in hltv comment section

2025-03-24 18:12

Do falcon goes to the major with old system? 50/50 for me

good page, whoever looks at it remember that some teams on not qualify can still make it cause it doesnt differentiate teams from the same org

2025-03-24 15:39

how is astralis there????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

2025-03-24 15:53

Maybe you should go to the Valve page and learn how VRS works.

it works?

2025-03-24 16:10

Who knows?

2025-03-24 16:19

you said it does

2025-03-24 16:23

hmm hmm. its hard to win the Major, if you not there. so they had to be #ToTheStars!

2025-03-24 20:01

navi falloff means surprise major win then falloff and then era then falloff to let other teams win

2025-03-24 15:58

where tf is mongolz in this list pls??

in the asia region, just scroll down

2025-03-24 16:16

scroll where pls? here on this article or vrs ranking tab on hltv ranking category? i really dont get it sry

2025-03-24 16:21

the link from the article hltv.org/valve-ranking/teams/major

2025-03-24 16:26

ahhh never noticed that my bad and ty a lot

2025-03-24 17:08

So G2 wins today they get stage 3. Hopefully m0nesy doesn't ego dry peak mid doors on CT dust2 25x in a row. Man that was some shit to watch.

would be good to see the teams that are just below the invitation cut off to see who can still get invited (in some cases they will as navi jr won't play the major)

2025-03-24 16:15

They are on the region pages. Click a region in the top

2025-03-24 16:20

ahh I didn't realize they were links! that said, I see black screen on part of the pages when I click on Europe, not sure if it's an issue on my phone (iPhone 14)

2025-03-24 16:28

Well Apogee is definetely out of MRQ race but cool article HLTV

2025-03-24 16:27

Astralis qualifies with two points over VP…

2025-03-24 18:48

deserved after Cluj run. No Playoffs no Stage 2 - vp

2025-03-24 18:58

now vp is 1 point ahead

2025-03-24 21:27

Interesting, I think Astralis will be lucky in the end.

2025-03-24 21:33

the page doesnt really add anything if you know the amount of slots, it doesnt even show who is next in line.

It factors in the minimum prize pool for ongoing events (which you won't see on the regular VRS ranking) and the decay that is going to occur in team points between now and April 7th. They can't "see" the future, but they are making some projections that aren't official yet,

2025-03-24 20:05

well thats useful at least, nvm

2025-03-24 21:40

I'm hella confused because there lots of unknowns, for example, no one knows who's winning Blast. Like everyone thought Mongolz would beat G2 but they didn't. Or NaVi and Eternal fire. Is there a formula that can account for all those unknowns?

2025-03-25 01:06

8 replies

as I understand it, it's updated when those results happen. like Falcons were in stage 3 before the G2/Mongolz match. G2 won, so now they're in and Falcons out

2025-03-25 02:29

7 replies

I beg your pardon because I still don't understand this part "The basics are simple; this ranking takes the time period from Oct 7-April 7 and accounts for all the data we have in any events that will finish before the Major invite deadline, including minimum prizemoney for ongoing events, and it takes into account natural decay by April 7." This seems to mean they have taken future events into account as well.

2025-03-25 04:08

"including minimum prizemoney for ongoing events" reads to me like they're taking into account what the teams have done so far, but not what they still can do in the events that are happening right now. for blast, this would mean they've already added top 4 money for vitality/EF and top 6 money for the other playoff teams, but all of them could still improve (though I think that would only change the seedings)

2025-03-25 07:04

Aah thanks. So basically it's some kind of simulator. I still think the decay part includes points that will have decayed by April 7

2025-03-25 12:00

That's correct it's already showing the decay up to April 7th, plus the minimum prize pool earned (that isn't counted in the actual VRS yet). They have no way to take into account events that will count but haven't even started yet, like the PGL Astana qualifiers.

2025-03-25 14:31

Aah, thanks. Because there's PGL Astana closed qualifiers and Yalla Compass. Like a lot can change in the next two weeks.

2025-03-25 14:38

Yes, for PGL Astana there is no prize money involved so the changes should be smaller unless we see big upsets. For YaLLa Compass, only 12 teams will be attending so the impact will only be for a select number of teams, but it's possible that those teams could move enough to impact things.

2025-03-25 15:00

Thank you. I found this explanation on Reddit and now I get it. No matter what this is all just a projection of the current state, and people need to remember that it can change. Essentially every VRS update is a recalculation starting with the newest match and working backwards, which also means that you can lose more or fewer points in H2H adjustment; e.g. if a team like Heroic or BC.Game performs well at the Astana Closed Qualifier or the YaLLa Compass Closed Qualifier, Astralis' loss to them will now be less "embarassing", and Astralis will lose fewer points in the H2H adjustment. Similarly Virtus.Pro gained points due to their opponents, including G2 and Eternal Fire, performing well meaning that VPs victory against them were worth more points. I think at this point the most important thing to know is that 3DMAX will qualify directly, and that it will be very, very close between Virtus.Pro and Astralis, it will come down to the wire and while Virtus.Pro is currently ahead that can change back and forth multiple times before the VRS list releases.

2025-03-25 15:38

Let's go Nouns

2025-03-24 21:17

wow, I didnt know the difference between M80 and WC would be ONLY 9 POINTS after blast now I really wonder what the rankings would look like if M80 didnt totally bomb out of the IEM Dallas qualifier :( ily WC, but I want M80 stickers already!!!

i need parivision vs vp

2025-03-24 22:48

Isn’t this wrong as Asias number 2 gets a direct invite to stage 1? You’ve got Rare Atom and FLYQUEST in MRQs

2025-03-25 01:48

yeah this also confuses me, technically i think china should have 2 qualifying teams? rare atom + winner of MRQ, because their rank passed flyquest recently (sadly). Meaning flyquest then play the MRQ and 1 OCE team goes. That's my understanding at least.

2025-03-25 02:12

There are no direct invites to stage 1. The 3 MRQs will play for 4 spots in stage 1. One spot from each MRQ and an extra spot to the MRQ with the highest ranked team.

2025-03-25 08:42

Was it like this the whole time? From listening to various podcasts I swear they described it as the 2nd place Asian VRS team would go through and the rest would fight for 1 spot in each MRQ.

2025-03-25 09:20