Hey everyone.
Following their recent successes, the Ukrainian team B8 received an invitation to a ranked tournament, FISSURE Playground #1. They are currently polling their fanbase to decide whether they should participate.
For the team, this is a difficult choice: declining participation in such a tournament would mean losing crucial points in the Valve Team Ranking. This could significantly impact their position in the pro scene and jeopardize future invites to major events. According to them, it's a risk of "devaluing all their achievements over the past six months."
Valve states that Counter-Strike should be an "open sport" where "ability is the only limit to success," and everyone competes on "equal terms." The VRS system is, in theory, supposed to uphold this.
However, FISSURE Playground #1, which will take place in Serbia, has certain connections to sponsors and a history of previous events (veiled due to the rules) that raise serious questions for the team.
So, here's Ukrainian team B8 facing this situation. They have a decision to make: either participate in a tournament that grants critically important VRS points but is tied to circumstances that cause significant ethical doubts for them and their country. Or decline, risking their ranking position and career.
This raises a question: how does Valve's ranking system account for such circumstances? We constantly see teams facing visa issues (for example, for tournaments in the USA), or safety concerns when traveling, or these specific connections of organizers/sponsors and their history. If tournaments that grant VRS points can be associated with such complexities, can all teams truly compete on "equal terms"?
18 Comments
>FISSURE… has certain connections to sponsors and a history of previous events
Wow. Crazy for a TO. Valve should ban them immediately.
Im sorry but how do you expect us to form an opinion without knowing the context of the tourneys sponsors which you can’t provide due to sub rules
What are the ethical doubts and certain connections? It’s hard to understand what exactly this is about if you beat around the bush. What did the TO do in the past, what’s the issue with their sponsors? Are they russian backed? If so, why not just write that?
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i understand how it looks from their pov. but i think valve doesn’t need to change rules to account for that.
if they want to skip a tournament as a political act they’re free to do so, but i don’t think rules shouldn’t apply.
although maybe there is some interesting way to fix such situation with rules, but i don’t have an idea of what it’d look like
There is no ethical choice here. It’s just cheap PR. If they were experiencing moral torment, they would return to Ukraine and contact the ТЦК.
if its a tournament accepted by valve and is ranked what is the issue? just play who cares.
if its a tournament accepted by valve and is ranked what is the issue? just play who cares.
They shouldn’t go. They seem like they don’t want to, a single tournament isn’t that important for VRS, HLTV thinks they have an invite for Cologne right after and they might get an invite for Esports World Cup right after that if some teams prioritize Blast Open and Rivals.
What’s the poll results so far? I don’t use telegram
It’s valves fault as well that such a shady TO is permitted at all, sometimes Valve is too open.
Context: FISSURE is basically created by BetBoom, a russian betting company which actively working on occupied ukrainian territory([opened couple’s of Internet caffees on occupied Crimea](https://x.com/Olsior/status/1765014308662980860?t=1vs64UiaE4LxxLN-5v8_rQ&s=19)) and also is a general sponsor of Russian Football Union(you can check it yourself on their website, Im not sure if i’m willing to share a link to a betting company in this website), which is basically RUS government’s football department
So basically B8 wants to be racist against the TO, because they have ties to something something russia … And its Valves fault?
Let them do what they think is the best, if they do participate I wish to ma boys to destroy everyone, but if they decide not to, I wish them to not give up and continue on their highest level and wait for the next tournaments
I’d like to add another tournament to this discussion: Esports World Cup
Much harder to take a moral stand when there’s VRS points on the line for skipping it
It is indeed a tricky situation and its important to talk about this and also make valve aware of this.
cannot ignore the outside world eventhough we are talking only about esports.
the political and international implications of the situation between russian and ukraine are serious and cannot be ignore so its good to talk about and to let valve know that this happen (even if they might not do anything about, knowledge is important)
I’m not a B8 fan so I wont cast my vote in the telegram
but i would vote do not play and wouldnt hold it against them if they dont play and miss on the points
Reading these comments… holy shit some of you are either trolling and I’m taking the bait hard, or you’re actually the dumbest people on the internet.
Of course a Ukrainian org would be hesitant to play in what is obviously still a Russian tournament when the two countries are actively at war right now. “What is the context?” Have you been living under a rock for three years?