Breaking: CCT events stripped of VRS Ranked status

Tonight, Valve have seemingly instructed HLTV to strip Ranked status from all CCT events currently running, including CCT Season 2 NA Series 4 due to "irregularities discovered in the invitation process of the event." Importantly, HLTV is the data provider for the Valve Ranking System (VRS), meaning the change on the coverage platform directly impacts Valve's own database.

While HLTV's statement on the event pages is sparse on details, the loss of Ranked status is seemingly related to CCT electing to invite teams to the three CCT events currently via a selection process independent of the Valve Ranking System (VRS). Importantly, all events in 2025 must use the VRS to determine invites to an event, with open qualifiers and wildcard invites being the only other valid methods to invite teams. With CCT seemingly being unaware of this requirement or deciding to forgo it has landed them in hot water.

For CCT Season 2 NA Series 4 the offending teams appear to be:

It appears that these nine teams were given direct invites by CCT to flesh out the Group Stage of the NA event, something disallowed under the current rules. With the event losing ranked status, it is unknown at the time of publication whether or not the events will continue as planned or if the sudden loss of ranked status will cause teams to drop out or for CCT to cancel the events outright.

Note that this is a developing situation and Dust2.us have reached out to Valve, HLTV, and CCT for further comment and more context on the situation. Stay tuned as we will be bringing you an update on the situation as soon as possible.