Graham Pitt cited that the reason why the tournament was being handled this way was “due to a very busy event schedule.” The news sparked heated discussions on Reddit, with many arguing that not having open qualifiers goes against the orthodox way of hosting open circuits, while others express no astonishment as if such mismanagement was expected.
So what happens next?
With no open qualifiers, it is expected that teams would be selected based on Valve’s rankings derived from performance in tournaments, including PGL’s circuit. In other words, it’s relatively easy to predict which teams would be competing, taking away from the anticipation of seeing smaller teams pave their way through by upsetting some of the giants.
A Redittor sums up the situation as follows: “It basically makes it impossible to qualify for any of the big events as a small t2 team. You’d have to completely dominate the region for an extended period of time and have one of the t1 teams bomb out in last place multiple times in order to get invited.”
On the other hand, some hold the opinion that, on top of the fact that open qualifiers would consume too much time, it’s better to have tier 2 teams grind their way into tier 1 to earn such invites. Graham Pitt also seems to share the same opinion: “Firstly, not criticizing PGL for this. The calendar is crazy next year and running quals would be a nightmare task. Secondly, the key change obviously is that all invites are done on merit next year. That’s great.”
On the bright side, from 2025 onwards, partnership leagues will be abolished for CS2. In other words, organizers will have to find other ways of laying out their events, including, of course, switching to a ranking-based circuit. Hence, even with PGL doing away with open qualifiers, tier two and three teams can look to plenty of other organizers that would be willing to let them compete.
