Michael

Hey @RLEsports, we need to have a talk. Many changes have been made to our scene this year. While I understand the necessity of some of them for budgetary reasons, many of them actually have no impact on cost and are hurting our scene. After experiencing them first hand in this first Open Qualifier, I can now confidently say it : not only are we headed in the wrong direction, our scene is at risk of dying. I'd like to bring those points in the appropriate channels, but let's be honest : communication have died down between you and the actors of your scene over the past few years, to the point where there's actually no communication anymore. This year's format have been applied without any input from any of those actors. And it looks like many decisions have been made by people who do not seem to know or understand the specificities of our game. I'd like to go more in depth, but it's not possible in a tweet, so I'll keep it somewhat simple : -The removal of auto qualification spots for Main Events is the most hurtful change. Our game is extremely volatile, wanting to add even more volatility to it is a non-sense. We don't require Real Madrid or PSG to go through all Champions League preliminary rounds every year for very good reasons. -Having to qualify to every event means the qualifier format needs to be extremely solid and fair for everyone. With only a Double Elimination bracket, it's currently not. -Every qualifier being a Double Elmination bracket means the seeding needs to be extremely solid and fair. The current seeding is not only unfair, it's also inconsistent throughout the different stages of the tournament. By applying extremely strict seeding rules without thinking it completely through, you are leaving weaknesses and exploits open, ruining the whole point of seeding. -Seeding being unfair and inconsistent means each match needs to at least have a long enough duration so that the better team have a better chance to come out on top. Again, it's not the case. We are playing BO3s for two straight days for no apparent reason : BO3 have been historically used to reduce the duration of long qualifier days. Qualifiers are currently split in 3 days, and those days are short enough to have BO5 for all of the matches. All of those issues, and many more I won't go into here, are pushing players above their limits. They are removing any form of stability and are forcing inconsistencies to happen. It's unhealthy for everyone : viewers, storylines, teams, players. Pros, semi-pros and amateurs. They also all have very easy fixes, with very little to no cost at all. Today proves it again : our esport is great. A lot of people want to watch it. But as it stands, it's not going to last much longer. We need better communication. We need changes. We need you to do better. Not next year, as soon as possible. Or the damage could be irreversible. One of your RLCS 2024 Major 1: Europe Open Qualifier 1 Winner. (?) CC: @UnkleCliffy @TimSweeneyEpic @BLASTEsports