GamerLegion Drama Exposes a Colossal Flaw in VRS

Valve’s implementation of VRS (Valve Regional Standings) is doing more harm than good, as more and more holes in the system continue to be exposed. One such issue came to light earlier this morning when GamerLegion reported a discrepancy that caused them to miss out on tournament invites.

It can be a little tricky to understand, because as EliGE said, you need a “Harvard degree to figure out” VRS system from Valve’s github repository. That is why, let us break down the whole scenario one by one for better understanding.

What is VRS?

VRS, or Valve Regional Standings, is a ranking system Valve created and forced tournament organizers (TOs) to adopt when inviting teams. These standings are split into world rankings and regional rankings, which are further broken down into three regions: Americas, Europe, and Asia. These rankings determine which teams get invitations to tournaments, qualifiers, and even Majors.

The system uses a broad range of metrics, not just victories and defeats, but also the severity of the matches and the strength of the opposing team. A key factor here is the prize money, which is treated as an indicator of the strength of the teams. And here lies the problem. Teams that get eliminated early can still benefit from prize money that pushes them over the cutoff point, while teams still competing miss out on points. This was the case for GamerLegion.

GamerLegion’s Case

On the cutoff date, Monday February 3, 2024, GamerLegion was ranked 13th, just 40 points behind FURIA, who secured the 12th spot. FURIA, who were eliminated in last place from IEM Katowice 2025 after two straight losses on the same day, had already received $10K in prize money which were counted in the 3rd February VRS update.

pic.twitter.com/4gZlQ22mSv

— GamerLegion (@GamerLegion) February 5, 2025

Meanwhile, GamerLegion, who were still in the running and had beaten MOUZ and Astralis, earned no points for their victories because they hadn’t received any prize money before the cutoff date. As a result, they missed out on the invite purely because they were still competing. This glaring flaw has sparked major controversy and exposed the vulnerability of Valve’s ranking system.

VRS Needs Revision

And this hasn’t been the only case of reported flaw in the system. Other issues have surfaced as well. For example, Imperial FE has declined tournaments to avoid losing VRS points, ensuring they remain eligible for invites to bigger events. All of this makes it pretty clear that Valve needs to go back to the drawing board with VRS because, as it stands, it’s just not cutting it.