Valve replace direct invitations for Fall Major

Valve has replaced direct invitations for their Fall Major with a ranking system. This ranking system will combine points earned from ESL One Rio and two other events leading up to the Major in November.

There will be three different ranking brackets for teams to fall in. The top eight teams will be Legends and the next eight will be Challengers. The remaining eight teams will come from the Minor system that is already in place for the four main regions.

Valve also released a list of requirements that the tournament organizers will need to meet:

• The event will be between July and September.
• The event will result in a LAN portion with a minimum of 8 teams. The portion of the event preceding the LAN competition can be online or LAN.
• The event will include a minimum of 24 teams, of which 16 slots are available to teams by Major ranking, and 8 are selected by a process of the TO's choosing.
• The event results will differentiate between the top 16 performing teams and the remaining teams.
• Initial seeding for the event will be done by Major ranking.
• Valve will match up to $250k in prize money.