Valve's October standings: Spirit stay first as Legacy climb to second

Team Spirit are still the first team in Valve's ranking of Counter-Strike 2. Valve, the publisher of the game, released the October update of its Valve Regional Standings on Monday, October 5, 2026, and HLTV, the Counter-Strike news site, published the table that evening. Spirit lead with 2046 points. Behind them the order has moved a great deal: Legacy, a Brazilian team, have climbed from sixth to second with 1931 points after winning FISSURE Playground 3 in September.

The update is the last monthly one before the list that decides the invitations to the PGL Singapore Major, due on November 2. It does not fill the Major itself, but it does fill two other events: BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2 in November and PGL Bucharest 2027 in January.

Valve Regional Standings of October 5, 2026, as published by HLTV; the invitations are 8 to BLAST Rivals Season 2 and 14 plus 6 to PGL Bucharest 2027.

What the standings are for

The Valve Regional Standings, which the scene calls the VRS, are the ranking Valve uses to hand out places in the tournaments of its circuit. Teams earn points at the events they play, and the list is updated once a month. It is not the only ranking in Counter-Strike: HLTV keeps its own world ranking, which fans follow from week to week. The difference is that Valve's list has consequences. Organizers who run events on Valve's circuit must invite teams from it.

The rule is written in Valve's Tournament Operation Requirements, the document that binds those organizers. "Tournament Operator must use the most recent version of the VRS, as of the Invite Date," section 3.2.3 reads, as HLTV quoted it in September. The Invite Date is the day an organizer chooses to read the ranking. Whatever list is current that day decides who is invited.

That is why the release date matters. Valve has consistently published its update on the first Monday of the month, HLTV noted in September, when that month's list came a day late because the first Monday was Labor Day, a federal holiday in the United States. Organizers who had set September 7 as their Invite Date were left without the ranking their rules required, and Valve later fixed the September file to remove events that had not finished by that date. The October update arrived on the first Monday, as usual.

The top of the table

HLTV noted that there was no change at the summit. The team won BLAST Open Porto on September 6, beating MOUZ in the final, HLTV reported. Its lead is now 115 points over Legacy. In the September table it was 129 points over MOUZ, then second.

The movement is below. Eight of the top ten teams have changed position since September; only Spirit and FURIA hold the same place.

Legacy gained 148 points and four places in a month. HLTV attributes it to the FISSURE Playground 3 title. The team swept G2 3-0 in the final in Suzhou, China, on September 13, winning on Ancient, Mirage and Dust2, HLTV reported. It was Legacy's third title on Chinese soil. Its five, as HLTV lists them, are arT, dumau, latto, n1ssim and try.

Who climbed and who slipped

G2 are back in the top five after what HLTV calls an impressive month. The team lost to Astralis on the opening day in Suzhou, then took one of the last playoff places, beat FURIA to reach the semifinals and BETBOOM to reach the final, according to HLTV's reports from September 8 to 12. Legacy came through the other semifinal against MIBR in an overtime decider on Inferno. G2 gained 124 points between the two tables.

Team Vitality, first in Valve's list in April, moved from fifth to third. On September 20 they beat Aurora to win StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2026 in Barcelona, their first title since May, HLTV reported. Aurora, the beaten finalists, had beaten Vitality on September 19 to reach their first final with a new roster, HLTV wrote, before Vitality beat FURIA for the other place in the final and won the rematch. Aurora rose from 12th to ninth.

Astralis are back in the top ten for the first time since June, according to HLTV. On October 4 they won a ranked LAN event in Barcelona with a US$100,000 prize pool, beating Nemiga 3-1 in the final after losing their opening match to Alliance and coming through the lower bracket. HLTV called it the team's first LAN trophy since 2019, when it won the BLAST Pro Series Global Final in Bahrain. Nemiga, outside the top 15 of the September table, are now 14th with 1551 points.

Three teams of the September top four have gone the other way. MOUZ, beaten by Spirit in the Porto final, dropped from second to fourth, Falcons from third to sixth and FUT from fourth to eighth.

Missing from the top of the list

The largest falls concern two of the best-known organizations in the game. FaZe were tenth in September with 1598 points. They are 26th in October with 1482, level on points with BIG. The team left the same ranked event in Barcelona in last place on October 2 after a loss to Astralis, and had also finished last at FISSURE Playground 3, HLTV reported.

Natus Vincere stood 11th in September with 1575 points. They do not appear in the October top 30, whose last place, JiJieHao, holds 1454 points. The team is playing ESL Pro League Season 24, which began on October 3: it opened with a win over G2 and lost to Vitality on the second day, according to HLTV's reports.

9z went from ninth to 17th, losing 61 points. Further down, 3DMAX are 21st with 1500 points, after winning Logitech G Play Connect in September, a title HLTV reported on September 24. The table still prints that name, although Envy signed the five players on September 29, HLTV reported.

The invitations this update sends

Two organizers read this update for their fields, HLTV reported. BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2, played from November 9 to 15, invites eight teams from the global list to its main event. PGL Bucharest 2027, from January 17 to 24, 2027, invites 14 teams from the global list to its main event and six teams from the European list to its European closed qualifier, a qualifying tournament open only to the teams invited to it.

HLTV describes both as events of the top tier. The global list is the full ranking across regions, so teams from every region are invited from the same table; the six European places use the regional list only.

Three months of the same leader

Set beside the August update, the October table shows how far the summer has moved the list. On August 3, HLTV's table had Spirit first with 2011 points, Falcons second with 1950 and MOUZ third with 1873. Natus Vincere were sixth with 1802, Legacy seventh with 1773 and FaZe 13th with 1677.

Spirit have added points in each update since: 2011, then 2031, then 2046. Legacy have gone from 1773 to 1783 to 1931, almost all of the gain in the last month. Falcons, the winners of the Cologne Major in June, have gone the other way, from 1950 to 1881 to 1843. For FaZe the three figures are 1677, 1598 and 1482, and for Natus Vincere 1802, 1575 and a total too low for the top 30.

Four weeks to the cut-off

The October table is a snapshot taken in the middle of a busy stretch. ESL Pro League Season 24 runs until October 11, and PGL Masters Bucharest, the 2026 edition, is played from October 24 to 31, ending two days before the Major cut-off. The first was under way and the second still to come when Valve released this update.

November 2, the date PGL chose for its reading, is the first Monday of the month, the day on which Valve has consistently released its updates, according to HLTV. Below Spirit, eight of the top ten places changed hands in a single month, and one more month of results remains before the field for Singapore is drawn.

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