Note: If you’re familiar with the Major qualification system, feel free to skip to the teams and begin the hating. 😉
The Major Regional Qualifiers (MRQs) are starting in the next two weeks. Over the course of four days (April 14 to April 17), the entire field for the BLAST Austin Major 2025 will be set. Many of you have been through this before—heartbreaks, elation, the entire spectrum of emotion will be on display. Unfortunately, we don’t have the same spectacle as the RMRs (Regional Major Rankings—the qualifiers that took place prior to each Valve Major, which either birthed Major runs or dashed sticker dreams). This is because the entirety of the MRQs will be carried out online by third-party organizers. I doubt there will be pre-game and post-game interviews. I doubt we’ll see the players for more than a few brief seconds before they shut their webcams off in dismay—or knock them over in exhilaration. The stories will be boiled down to a W in the win column or an L in the loss.
Qualifying for the Major makes or breaks the entire season for some of these teams. Attending a Valve Major gives teams one of their only chances in the Counter-Strike ecosystem to informally work with the game developer, Valve, to place their logo in the game. These stickers are sold throughout the duration of the Major and usually for at least a month following the event. Sticker money in the past has been reported to be in excess of $4.5 million per team. Even though those numbers will likely not be replicated at this Major (the $4.5m figure comes from the wildly successful BLAST Paris Major due to a variety of factors), teams will generally make in excess of $1 million—which is akin to coming in first place at the Major itself, twice. Although ill-advised, there are more than a handful of teams in the space with expenditures that exceed $1 million annually in player salaries, bootcamp facilities, management staff, and other additional costs. At least one of the teams on my list is among those.
The official cutoff for the Major Regional Qualifier invites is April 7th. By the end of that date, the teams that are birthed into the Major proper, along with the Major Regional Qualifiers, will be determined. There are only a handful of Tier 2—arguably Tier 3—events wrapping up between the time of writing this article and that date: European Pro League 2nd Division, BetBoom qualifiers, and FireLeague qualifiers. Generally speaking, these are irrelevant in the grand scheme. However, they may have some small repercussions for the cutoff teams. Some South American teams competing in these include RED Canids, BESTIA, and Fluxo. RED Canids does have potential for movement in or out of the MRQ.
That being said, most of the field has been determined. Let’s get into the six teams that need to make it through the MRQs—or I would argue they should cease operations or make drastic roster changes at the bare minimum. I will be ranking them in order of disaster if they were to not qualify.
6 – RED Canids
Letting dav1deuS walk away to replace him with felps is like remaking Jaws with an aging dolphin. People just can’t take you seriously anymore. This roster is barely going to even qualify for the MRQ itself in what I’ve been told by people closer to the Brazilian scene is a “vanity project” from the likes of coldzera and company. The reason they land at #6 is more to do with what I’ve heard behind the scenes regarding their choices of who to pick up and the lack of trust in the upcoming generation. I still have a soft spot for drop, who joined their ranks recently after benching himself from MIBR, where his in-game leading ability seemed to have run its course. Several of the individual pieces on this team could easily make an impact elsewhere, but it really seems like venomzera has surrounded himself with too many players to teach him and not enough players to frag with him. Yes, I am still a HEN1 fan.
5 – Fluxo
Assembling a team with arT and kye is akin to trying to fuel your car with vegetable oil. You aren’t going anywhere. Fluxo is already a near-dead project in my eyes. Their only Major berth came at the BLAST Paris Major 2023, and they were the easiest 0-3 pick I have ever had the pleasure to witness. Their 2023 squad was led by a supercharged Lucaozy, who could bully every single player from South or North America with pure mechanics. Since selling Lucaozy to MIBR, Fluxo hasn’t seen a modicum of success. The owners of this team should already consider retiring the project as a whole because the general management has been horrendous on every level. This is simply a collective group of five players who should not be getting paid to play Counter-Strike.
4 – 9Pandas
Watching r3salt struggle to find any success with 9Pandas after abandoning Aurora is like watching a guy who broke up with his high school sweetheart of seven years because a girl at his office flirted with him once. He’ll forever be cursed to realize it will never get better than what he had. Even if behind closed doors deko seemed to be a nutcase, his AWPer now is anarkez. This guy always impressed me when I tuned into Tier 2 tournaments in the past, but he’s also been trying to make it for over five years. What this team may lack in individual firepower, it certainly does not make up for in experience. After the disaster that was the PGL Copenhagen Major—where this organization qualified but (seemingly due to their own aloofness) couldn’t secure visas—they’ve just been on a downward trend. In a historically poor case of option assessment, likely up there with Kjaerbye deciding to leave to join North, r3salt has committed a similar error, just on a less mainstream scale.
3 – Wildcard
Wildcard looked like a shoo-in for the Major given their ability to win against European opposition. It was a surprisingly shrewd blend of up-and-coming North American talent in JBa, misshapen scraps from the European region in susp and phzy, and veteran leadership from stanislaw that made this team exciting to watch. Oh yeah—and there’s a South African player who retired but then un-retired from his “passion of business,” Sonic, though he’s difficult to fit into this. Either way, for whatever reason Wildcard decided to use Stewie2k in place of their Swedish AWPer, phzy, for some contracted period, and they lost to M80 in the PGL Astana Closed Qualifier. They’ve now slipped out of the top North American teams to M80. I really had absolutely no reason to dislike Wildcard or do anything but respect them and their silently commendable GMing, but this whole -phzy +Stewie2k move came out of nowhere and seems to be ruining their season. If they fall short at the final hurdle because of this, either I’m missing some loophole they were trying to exploit, or they themselves are to blame.
2 – BIG Clan
I bet this is going to shock a few people. So let me make it abundantly clear: I still rate Krimbo and JDC highly for their roles. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re world-class, but they could be serviceable pieces on teams vying for spots in the Top 12 worldwide. To see them outside the Top 20—now there’s a problem. The skill and experience disparity on this roster is just too vast. I have yet to find a reason to get excited about hyped or kyuubi. Despite kyuubi naturally fitting into the roles that rigoN was LARPing (anchor, support lurk), he might still be worse in almost every way. Hyped sadly does not have the mind to be a Tier 1 AWPer right now. His moves are too aggressive by default—which would be great if he were a rifler—but forcing this style when your skills aren’t actually top-tier is more frustrating than anything. I don’t actually think BIG Clan should disband if they don’t make it, but they need to change a lot—and not in a scapegoating-the-coach kind of way this time.
1 – Astralis
Astralis’ motto is to reach for the stars. The only stars they’ve been seeing are the ones in your vision after getting smacked too hard upside the head. You knew this one was coming. Four consecutive Major misses, with a chance to continue breaking their own record. If Astralis miss a fifth consecutive Major, they should pack up shop entirely, and everyone should be fired immediately. There is almost no redeemable aspect to what’s happening within this organization at this point. From winning four Majors to missing four. I cannot fathom that the expenses on this team are somehow budget-friendly when you miss out on what is essentially $10 million already. They are so far in the red that even the US stock market looks light in comparison.
