Graham Pitt

New years "VRS wish": Remove delay on event weight upgrade for qualifier events in VRS please 🙏 A question related to this: Should teams play the upcoming IEM Rio and IEM Atlanta qualifiers when we consider the qualification for the IEM Cologne major only? Answer: No. If we focus on the next major qualification only, then these events pose greater "VRS risk" than "VRS reward" despite the recent change in VRS giving such events event a higher event weight from linked prize pool from the main event. Here's why: As you may know last year Valve changed it so that qualifier events got a much needed upgrade to event weight in VRS based on the prize pool of the main event they link to (qualifies to). This gave matches in an online qualifier to a $1 mill LAN event a significant boost in VRS points gained (just an example). However the implementation has one big flaw in my opinion. The extra points from increased event weight of matches in qualifier events are not added in the VRS until the grand final of the main event is played. We have "survived" until now without anybody really noticing, because so far it hasn't had major impact on important cutoff dates and whether it was worth the risk playing a qualifier. Most qualifier events have been played relatively close to main events. For the upcoming major qualification this changes! For IEM Rio and IEM Atlanta there will be online Open and Closed qualifiers in January and February, which as a concept is a very good thing. Now there will be actual spots in the main events to get for tier 2 teams and less safe spots for tier 1½ teams. However there is a big VRS timing issue with the current implementation of event weight of linked events in my opinion. With IEM Rio and IEM Atlanta being held after the major qualification cut-off on April 6th, the online matches from the open and closed qualifiers will have lowest possible event weight for 2-3 months in the VRS until the main event is completed. Only then (for May and June ranking) will the matches from the qualifiers held in January and February be upgraded in value leading to extra points "paid out" with a huge delay. In fact, so much delay that much of the gain from the extra event weight will then have decayed when it is finally added (absurd in itself). This is a big "punishment" for all the teams participating in those qualifiers. On one hand you are "forced" as a serious team to participate in these events for a chance of getting one of those few spots available for IEM Rio and IEM Atlanta. On the other hand this poses a risk of hurting your chances in the major qualification from expensive defeats in these qualifiers, which greatly outweighs the potential VRS reward of winning matches in the qualifiers, because none of the meaningful VRS points from the extra event weight is "paid out" until the main events complete after the major cutoff. When you play the qualifiers in January, you will basically gain nothing in terms of real VRS ranking points from your wins, but you will still be punished hard for your defeats (back to the original problem). This is because as long as the win counts with minimum event weight they will only award H2H adjustment points, which is just overall negative for all but very few teams in Open and Closed Online qualifier event. A top 16 team participating in the closed qualifiers have to win or come second in the Closed qualifier to not lose points overall from the qualifier in the major qualification race. Same for tier 2 teams trying their luck, with double elim they are most likely to lose points overall from participating. But once the main event is complete (after the major cutoff) the result of the matches from that same event is then "upgraded" to award more points for the now 2-3 months old matches. So we are in a situation where playing important qualifiers is also much of a risk to your major qualification chances if you only focus on that. It shouldn't be this way. Its a wrong dynamic and it could be fixed by increasing the event weight from the beginning. Then the qualifier events would rightfully serve as a nice extra chance for tier 2 teams to gain some points extra points in the major qualification race. I fail to see any good argument for this delay, so its probably more of a technicality it is even there. Most of all its just not consistent. Either you reward ALL the points from a qualifier when the qualifier ends or you hold back ALL the points from qualifiers until the main event completes. Btw, teams don't even realise this issue I am pretty sure. How are you supposed to know these kind of details. Its way too technical. HLTV has tried to give teams an insight into what the weight of an event is by adding VRS Weight in the event details. Very good implementation, but even that should then come with an important note that the event weight is technically 0$ until the main event completes. Here's the details for IEM Rio Closed qualifier from HLTV: For this event, the VRS Weight is technically 0$ until the May 2026 ranking when the main event has finally been played. That is not the impression you get from the above. It also makes forecasting VRS gain difficult, because the question then becomes when you want to valuate the gain from the match.. in February, March and April the win will have one value, but from May and forward it will have a significantly increased value although decay also kicks in.. All this is far too technical to handle for Teams and HLTV and all of us. Its just a really bad mechanic in my opinion and I really hope it could be changed ASAP 🙏 Lets please streamline when points from matches in qualifier events count in VRS?