by GamerLegion have found themselves at the centre of an esports controversy following an error in Valve’s February ranking update.
A glitch in the calculation system caused the European organisation to lose their crucial 12th-place standing, which directly impacted their invitations to key Counter-Strike 2 tournaments such as BLAST Open Spring and PGL Bucharest.
The organisation is now demanding transparency and urging Valve to rectify the issue promptly.
Valve’s team rankings are pivotal in determining invitations to premier tournaments.
However, the latest update failed to award points to teams still competing in IEM Katowice, while teams already eliminated received their rightful evaluations.
This discrepancy was first flagged by Complexity’s manager, Graham “messioso” Pitt, on X and soon picked up by GamerLegion, whose ranking was directly affected.
There is a pretty major flaw in the way Valve (and HLTV?) are calcualating the VRS with regards to on-going events (in todays case, Katowice) which has been going on for months but since today is a major invite cut-off it's more relevent than ever.
On a very basic level – teams… pic.twitter.com/g6Lb2j1le7
— Graham Pitt (@messioso) February 3, 2025
At the time of the ranking update on February 3, GamerLegion was still active in IEM Katowice.
The error resulted in them dropping to 13th place, missing the top-12 threshold required for automatic invites to BLAST Open Lisbon, PGL Bucharest, YaLLa Compass Qatar, IEM Melbourne, and IEM Dallas.
The margin was painfully narrow—just 0.4 points short of qualifying.
GamerLegion’s official statement highlighted a “calculation discrepancy” related to prize pool distributions.
The current Valve Ranking System (VRS) accounts for prize money earned, which posed an issue for teams still in contention during the cutoff date.
While eliminated teams had their earnings locked in, active teams like GamerLegion missed out on potential points since their final placement and prize money were yet to be determined.
Following their elimination on February 4, GamerLegion secured a US$38,000 prize.
Factoring in their performance—a win against Astralis and losses to Spirit and The MongolZ—the team surged to 11th place in HLTV’s live implementation of Valve’s formula.
This placed them 43 points ahead of FURIA Esports, who had their US$10,000 prize already counted in the February 3 cutoff.
GamerLegion has formally reached out to Valve, emphasising that their intention is not to undermine other teams but to advocate for fairness and consistency within the competitive landscape.
“Our goal is to preserve the spirit of fair competition through transparency and consistency,” the organisation stated.
Marc Winther, Director of Game Ecosystems for Counter-Strike at ESL FACEIT Group, addressed the issue ahead of upcoming events, clarifying that partially completed tournaments would not factor into prize-money calculations.
While Valve has acknowledged the problem and is reviewing potential adjustments, it’s noteworthy that even with immediate changes, GamerLegion’s original standing might not have qualified them without their post-Katowice performance boost.
This incident raises broader concerns about the reliability of the VRS and its impact on competitive integrity.
The overlap between ranking cutoffs and ongoing tournaments introduces vulnerabilities that can significantly alter a team’s prospects.
Simple adjustments, such as avoiding cutoff dates that coincide with active tournaments, could mitigate future discrepancies.
As the esports community awaits Valve’s official response, the outcome of this case could set an important precedent for future ranking evaluations and tournament qualifications.
— GamerLegion (@GamerLegion) February 5, 2025
