It didn’t take long for the meme brigade to come out in full force in light of Besiktas’ female-only team’s complete collapse at DreamHack Open Rotterdam. It’s like the CLG Red discussion all over again, a regularly regurgitated pile of gunk where people conflate competitive integrity with invite-only spots.

So, Besiktas is not good enough to go up against regular DreamHack Open opposition – this has not been much of a surprise going into the event. The team, after all, has been struggling in ESEA Open¸ a fairly good barometer for their overall skill level. For some, their mere presence at the event seemed to be an affront, “wasting a spot” at the tournament at the expense of better sides.

It’s a tired old argument with little merit. No slot is being “taken” away by those imaginary tier 4 teams that are supposedly denied a chance for a breakout performance at a DreamHack Open: past events in the circuit all featured just the two regional qualifier spots, meaning an invite-only one was converted to the one which went to the winners of DreamHack Showdown Valencia.

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How low on the competitive ladder would critics like to go where they’d give TOs a free pass to invite a team based on marketing consideration instead of merit? Newsflash: it’s been going on at the very top of the scene. IEM Sydney has more Oceanian slots than the rest of the circuit, BLAST had the Iberian play-in in Madrid, Cloud9 still makes the occasional LAN appearance – the list goes on. What’s the practical difference between inviting weak domestic sides (like in the case of the Hungarian-only qualifier for the V4 Future Sports Festival) or fallen giants like Virtus.pro or MIBR to your event in comparison with a Besiktas?