Valve issues penultimate ranking update prior to RMR cutoff date

It's getting closer and closer to August 7th, the cutoff date for the teams that will be invited to the Perfect World Shanghai Americas RMR and the North American and South American Closed Qualifiers. Eight teams will be invited to the Americas RMR, while sixteen teams will be invited to the Closed Qualifier for North And South America. From these two qualifiers, four teams each will make their way into the RMR.

Valve has marked August 7th as the ranking cutoff, and with so few events until that date, every win and every loss has become magnified.

Majors previously allowed anyone to participate through an Open Qualifier system, which caused havoc as organizers and teams scrambled to qualify in a field of randoms and potential cheaters. Now, the invite-only system looks to improve upon that by judging teams for their form and consistency over time rather than in a "cinderella" run through the qualifiers.

The prior update marked some pretty significant changes for North American teams. Complexity was dethroned following their disappointing finish at the Esports World Cup, while FURIA's relative success pushed them to first. Additionally, there were some shakeups in the sixteen teams in the closed qualifiers.

For today's ranking, Liquid has elevated one ranking and is now the #3 seed, having usurped 9z. Their BLAST campaign has already kicked off thanks to a win over Virtus.pro, and the squad is looking to show the world what their new squad can do.

The most notable change to the Closed Qualifier list is that Wildcard have been officially include din the Americas ranking for the first time due to an oversight in Valve's sorting code being resolved. Elsewhere, squads like Limitless, Take Flyte, and the now EFG-banned and defunct Perseverance squad will technically squeak in as the second-to-last seed. ESL Impact squads FlyQuest RED and TSM Shimmer will also be invited to the Closed Qualifier. The full list may be found here.

If the invites to the RMR and its Closed Qualifiers went out today, the team lists could look as follows:

RMR Invites:

1. FURIA

2. Complexity

3. Liquid

4. 9z

5. paiN

6. MIBR

7. M80

8. Imperial