Valve open to proposals for RMR tournaments

The game developer asked tournament organisers to start bidding for the qualifying events.

Valve has announced that it is open to proposals for the 2021 Regional Major Ranking (RMR) events. In an email to tournament organisers, the game developer communicated its wish to host "at least two RMR events" in each region, with the final competition being held on LAN.

The first RMR event should be held in the spring or early summer, while the last tournament should target the weeks that had been set aside for the Minors - which means that it will need to be completed two to three weeks before the start date of the Major (October 23).

Just like last year, Valve encouraged tournament organisers to reconfigure their existing events in the calendar to become RMR competitions, which will need to meet the following requirements:

- Features at least as many teams invited by RMR points as there are Major slots available for that region;
- Features the same number of additional teams, split evenly between qualifiers and direct RMR invites (if enough teams with RMR points are available);
- Within the RMR portion of the event, no participating team is invited to a later stage than those invited by RMR;
- Have distinct placement for teams across invite boundaries (I.e. no 3rd-4th combined place when the region needs to identify top three places).

Valve added that it will provide travel, accommodation and prize pool support for the final RMR tournament in each region. Attending teams will be required to obtain a visa (or equivalent) for travel to the Major prior to attending the RMR event.

Valve is yet to announce what the RMR points system will look like following the introduction of new events to the qualification cycle, which began with the StarLadder Major, held in the summer of 2019, and included a series of tournaments in 2020 in each region (three in Europe, North America, Asia, and the CIS, two in South America and Oceania). The current qualification process was unveiled by Valve in April 2020 and replaced the old invite system.

The PGL Major will be held in Stockholm from October 23 through November 7, with the playoffs due to be held in front of a live audience at the Ericsson Globe. It will be the company's second Counter-Strike Major, after it hosted an event of this stature in the Polish city of Krakow in 2017.