VRS madness, the start of Bucharest and joy for G2 - yesterday in Counter-Strike

We take a few days off between big tournaments to write some data-driven pieces and look what happens.

Absolute chaos.

Let's start with the VRS rankings, which are nigh-on impossible to follow for the layman without professional help.

Liquid and Passion UA need wins badly, but not as badly as FaZe over in Europe who have signed up for two tournaments at once and will start 0-2 at Bucharest because they're prioriting their last chance at the Major at HLC Belgrade PRO. EYEBALLERS got a free win, which while nice will probably just upset JW, who seemed so excited to play at a big LAN again.

Still, at least FaZe won against BEE and Drama in Belgrade to get some much-needed wins. They couldn't, could they?

NIP are apparently out, which is of no surprise to anyone. They lost to HEROIC, so they don't really deserve it to be quite honest.

Liquid are in danger because Gaimin Gladiators climbed above them last night because of a win at some Brazilian event. If Gaimin Gladiators win in the semi-finals of their event, than Liquid need the winner of BESTIA or Passion UA to then lose the final or they will miss out on qualification from the Americas, which is, quite frankly, hilarious.

Lynn Vision, over in Asia, seem to have qualified for the Major by making the final of an event without having played a game.

What an absolute nightmare the VRS system has turned out to be in these fringe cases. Just awful to follow.

On a lighter note, G2 finally got their hands on some silverware, with NertZ' first trophy on the team coming at Stake Ranked Episode 1. IEM Cologne it ain't, but a trophy is a trophy. They beat a dangerous BetBoom team 2-1 in the grand final, who climbed above HEROIC and GamerLegion in the VRS rankings in the process.

Anyway, on to Bucharest, where the day started with us finding out that known matchfixer retchy would be playing, for some God forsaken reason.

A great start.

s1mple looked good as BC.Game were soundly beaten by The MongolZ, predictably, while FUT needed three maps to get the better of Inner Circle, less predictably.

The aforementioned retchy got smashed by NRG 2-0 with Sonic going 40-16, and PARIVISION pulled off a win from 0-1 down against Legacy in what looks like a good chance for them to win a trophy. They'll be challenged by Astralis, whose impressive form is continuing, but not 3DMAX, who looked pretty awful in a loss to a FOKUS team who have been on a meteoric rise.

They did lose a man to Wildcard notably recently, who were 2-0'd by B8. We'd love to see Wildcard vs FOKUS in a 2-2 game, personally.

And breathe. That's about it for one or two days of Counter-Strike.