Blogger and founder of the esports organization CYBERSHOKE Esports, Erik Shokov, known as Shoke, has responded to the news regarding the cancellation of regional qualifiers for the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 in CS2. He believes Valve`s decision was influenced by the intermediate results of the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025.
Shokov shared his thoughts on Telegram, stating:
At the next Major, if a team isn`t in the world`s top 32 — they won`t play.
Regional qualifiers are removed!
By the way, we are ranked top 60 in the world.
They again saw unknown teams in the Legends Stage and continue to suppress them.
Let the active abuse of points via regional LANs begin!
The decision by Valve to discontinue Major Regional Qualifiers (MRQ) for the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 became public on June 11. The company cited that, when considering third-party organizer tournaments and the VRS system, conducting additional qualifiers only complicates the seasonal calendar.
The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 is currently underway in the USA from June 3 to 22. In this tournament, three teams that qualified regionally managed to reach the third stage, while more established teams like Team Falcons, Heroic, and others were eliminated earlier.
Finley Holt