Valve strips MESA Nomadic Masters Fall of ranked status after violation of operation requirements*

Some teams had advanced access to the sign-up process for the open, 32-team stage of the event.

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Update 10:37 : MESA have released a statement on X in which they take "full responsibility" for their "oversight."

They said: "While no teams had been registered at the time of the decision, we recognize that our early communication with several interested teams-prior to the public announcement of updated tournament dates-constituted a procedural violation.

"In response to direct inquiries from teams seeking clarity on scheduling and logistics, we shared updated tournament details before they were publicly announced. But we now understand that it unintentionally compromised the fairness and accessibility required for ranked events.

"We take full responsibility for this oversight. MESA is actively revising the structure and timeline of Nomadic Masters Fall 2025 to ensure full compliance with Valve's Tournament Operation Requirements. Our commitment to integrity, transparency, and international best practices remains unchanged."

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Valve has instructed HLTV to mark MESA Nomadic Masters Fall as an unranked event after it was found to violate Section 3.5 of the Tournament Operation Requirements.

3. Rules for Ranked Tournaments
3.5 Open Qualifiers.
For Open Qualifiers, Tournament Operator can use any criteria that in good faith are reasonable and transparent, and do not specifically target individual Rosters. Acceptable criteria include demographics and region (e.g. "Female Rosters based in Canada").

The LAN in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia was originally scheduled to run from October 15-19, but recent documents show the organizer was attempting a pivot to September 23-28 — ahead of the October 6 ranking cutoff for invites to the StarLadder Budapest Major. The new dates and format would see all eight teams at the main event come from a 32-team, "open qualifier" LAN stage.

HLTV understands the tournament organizer was seeking a non-refundable, $10,000 registration fee per team for the open qualifier, accepted on a "first-come, first-served basis."

Complexity's General Manager, Graham "⁠messioso⁠" Pitt, took to X on August 14 to share a screenshot of an email from an unnamed tournament organizer that contained this very offer, with ENCE's Marketing Director, Joona "⁠natu⁠" Leppänen, and Partizan's coach, Dejan "⁠BAXACHA⁠" Atanacković, indicating they received similar emails (1, 2).

In a comment, Valve confirmed that "some teams had advance access to the sign-up process for a first-come-first-served open event, which violates 3.5 of the TOR."

The loss of ranked status adds further controversy to MESA's tournament operations as the organizer had already reduced the Fall event's prize pool from $250,000 to $100,000, tried to move its event dates, and has been accused of non-payment.

Australian commentator Jordan "⁠Elfishguy⁠" Mays had taken to X on August 14 to comment on messioso's post, claiming it was "unreal behaviour from a TO that is ghosting their unpaid talent."