Valve Ranking System for CS:GO
Valve’s regional CS2 rankings are updated weekly using a public formula. They are used to track a team’s performance in ranked matches and tournaments.
The rankings take into account a number of factors, including a team’s head-to-head results, prize pool earnings, and the strength of their opponents. They also place a greater emphasis on recent results.
How It Works
Valve’s new team rankings system, known as the valve ranking, has been a hot topic of discussion within the Counter-Strike community. The system uses a number of factors to determine a team’s overall skill level, with an emphasis on recent performance. These factors include bounties collected, network wins, and LAN victories. They are also weighted by age weight and event weight, which reflects how high-profile the tournament was.
A team’s ranking is dynamic, meaning that a strong performance in a prestigious tournament can see them climb up the ladder, while poor results may cause a sharp drop. However, consistency over time matters more than one or two good performances. This system helps ensure that teams with staying power reach the upper echelons of CS:GO.
Seeding
Valve has released a new ranking system for Counter-Strike teams that will directly impact team invitations to tournaments like the Major Championships. The new ranking model uses transparent criteria that take into account match performance, head-to-head results and tournament participation.
Valve’s ranking system aims to balance the needs of both eSports fans and tournament organizers. The goal is to create a ranking system that offers prestige for high-performing teams and makes it hard to exploit the rankings.
To do this, they calculate what they call “bounties” and “networks,” which are determined by summing and averaging the scaled values of opponents defeated over a six month period. This helps to ensure that teams cannot artificially inflate their rank by defeating a lot of weaker opponents.
Bounties
The ranking system is used by Valve to determine which teams will be invited directly to the major qualification stages for CS: GO events. It uses publicly available information about team performance, including match results and head-to-head matches, as well as tournament participation. It also prevents tournament operators from having business relationships with teams, and it requires all team rewards to be public.
The VRS is a significant shift in how CS2 teams are evaluated and ranked, and it has sparked debate within the eSports community about its impact on the competitive landscape. In particular, its emphasis on recent results has led to dramatic shifts in team rankings based on single tournament performances. This has made it challenging for teams and fans to understand or predict rank changes.
Networks
In CS:GO, winning prestigious tournaments such as the CS:GO Majors can boost a team’s ranking. But to maintain a high ranking, teams must focus on strategic tournament selection and consistent performance throughout the season.
Since 2024, Valve’s global eSports rankings have been used to determine invites for upcoming events and tournament qualifiers. Unlike previous tournament organizers who ran franchised leagues, Valve now handles all invites and regional closed qualifiers. Teams can check their rankings on HLTV’s live-updated rankings page. They are based on several factors, including results, strength of opponent, and recency.
Elo
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The new system seems to favour the most active teams, meaning that tier two teams who frequently attend smaller LAN competitions can easily gain points and climb higher than their true ranking would suggest. However, with the tournament calendar already looking more packed than ever, some players are worried that they may burn out before getting to tier one.
All matches are run through an ELO algorithm, with the initial seeding value being the determining factor. Wins and losses are weighed, as well as the overall ratings of opponents and teammates (though this hasn’t been explicitly stated by Valve). These values get scaled to give an initial rating and are then used to form the regional leaderboards.
