Valve has released significant changes to the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) model, a system that ranks Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) teams and is tied to invites for sanctioned esports events.
Changes include how forfeits contribute to team rankings and when tournament data is recorded and added to the standings.
The changes, made on February 24th, 2025, note that forfeits will now hold the same value as any loss that occurs during online and offline matches.
Prior to Valve’s adjustments, any forfeits didn’t contribute to the results. This provided some teams with a loophole to give up in matches and avoid their rankings being impacted.
In addition, tournament data that is recorded won’t count until the final match of the event has finished. The change means that teams competing in events that go over the VRS ranking update time frame won’t be negatively hampered.
Tournament data recording notably caused issues during the 2025 season. German esports organisation GamerLegion released a statement claiming it had missed out on a top 12 invitation to the BLAST Open Lisbon event while competing at IEM Katowice due to prize money not being taken into account. This is due to the fact the organisation was still active in the event.
Another notable change is that instead of needing 10 matches for a team to be eligible for the VRS, the Valve VRS changes now require teams to compete in five matches.
The last part of the Valve VRS changes involves how prize money is calculated. Club revenue that event organisers such as ESL FACEIT Group and the Esports World Cup use are now integrated into the structure.
Club revenue is separated from tournament prize money in several ESL-operated tournaments and is used as a means to support organisations participating in their events.
