Valve announces RMR points system for ESL One Rio Major circuit

Valve has announced how the Regional Major Rankings (RMR) points system will work to determine the 24 teams attending the ESL One Rio Major later this year.

With the invite system abandoned by Valve, teams will earn spots at this year's Major by collecting points in a series of RMR competitions, the next of which, called ESL One: Road to Rio, will kick off in a week's time.

Valve has also decided to reward teams for their heroics at the StarLadder Major, though with only a very limited number of points going to the top-16 finishers. Astralis earned 800 points for winning the tournament, while the remaining Legends received 600, and the teams who placed ninth through 16 collected 300.

Astralis are currently leading the RMR table with 800 points

Both ESL One: Road to Rio and the Fall RMR Series will be sponsored by Valve, with $255,000 being divided between six regions. Details are still scarce about the Summer Series, which is expected to run between the Spring Series and the player break. There will be a 25 percent increase in the number of points awarded in each RMR tournament held after ESL One: Road to Rio as Valve wants to reward teams hitting peak form in the run-up to the Major.

Teams will be allowed roster changes between each RMR event but at the cost of 20 percent of the team's points per player changed. Replacing three or more players will result in a reset of a team's points. This, combined with the fact that teams can only register five players and a coach (who can step in but also at the cost of 20 percent of the points for the tournament), has the potential to hamper Astralis' plans to introduce a six-man lineup as they would be penalised for every change.

Below you can find the points' distribution that will be in place for the ESL One Rio circuit:

StarLadder Major
1. 800
2. 600
3. 600
4. 600
5. 600
6. 600
7. 600
8. 600
9. 300
10. 300
11. 300
12. 300
13. 300
14. 300
15. 300
16. 300 ESL One: Road to Rio
1. 1600
2. 1500
3. 1400
4. 1300
5. 1200
6. 1100
7. 1000
8. 900
9. 800
10. 700
11. 600
12. 500
13. 400
14. 300
15. 200
16. 100 RMR 2 (Summer)
1. 2000
2. 1875
3. 1750
4. 1625
5. 1500
6. 1375
7. 1250
8. 1125
9. 1000
10. 875
11. 750
12. 625
13. 500
14. 375
15. 250
16. 125 RMR 3 (Fall)
1. 2500
2. 2344
3. 2188
4. 2031
5. 1875
6. 1719
7. 1563
8. 1406
9. 1250
10. 1094
11. 938
12. 781
13. 625
14. 469
15. 313
16. 156

Each region will be allocated invites to the ESL One Rio Major based on how their teams performed at the StarLadder Major. The invitations are the following:

Europe:3 Legends, 6 Challengers, 2 Contenders
North America:3 Legends, 1 Challenger, 1 Contender
CIS:2 Legends, 1 Challenger, 2 Contenders
South America:1 Contender
Asia:1 Contender
Oceania:1 Contender

Astralis #2 Andreas 'Xyp9x' HøjslethPeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenLukas 'gla1ve' RossanderNicolai 'device' ReedtzEmil 'Magisk' Reif