Yalla Compass Qatar 2025 will be held online instead of lan

A bright lan tournament in Qatar turned into an online competition - the organizers of Yalla Compass Qatar 2025 were forced to change the format due to the coincidence of dates with MRQ (Major Ranking Qualifier). Half of the participants were unavailable to travel to Doha, which put the lan final in doubt.

The reason for the changes is the MRQ calendar
Six of the twelve participants of the tournament (Astralis, Complexity, BetBoom Team, Nemiga, ENCE and 9Pandas) will play MRQ from April 14 to 17, the same dates as the Yalla Compass lan finals. Most of these teams got to the tournament through closed qualifiers, but due to the priority of the major, they were forced to withdraw or put up a conditional lineup.

The organizers announced the transfer of the event online, having agreed this decision with Valve in order to maintain the VRS rating status. In addition, the prize pool was halved from $600,000 to $300,000.

We have been working on this tournament for a long time and would like to hold it on lan . But our main goal is the integrity and quality of the competition. We remain committed to our fans and plan to continue to hold flagship events in the MENA region
Klaus Kaetzky, founder of YaLLa Esports

The tournament will remain a ranking event
The final part of YaLLa Compass Qatar 2025 will be held on European servers to ensure a level playing field. The tournament retains A-Tier status, and all matches will remain BO1 in groups and BO3 in the playoffs. The organizers promise a flexible schedule to avoid conflicts with other events.

“This transition allows us to protect the standards of the Compass series while supporting the global community. Online now, but lan soon!” summarized Temu Koski, CGO of YaLLa Esports .

Current participants of Yalla Compass Qatar 2025:

aurora
Astralis
paiN Gaming
Virtus.pro
3DMAX
MIBR
Complexity
ENCE
Nemiga
BetBoom Team
9Pandas
Partizan Esports

Most of them played the qualifier only for the sake of VRS points to secure their position for the upcoming major. This was the main argument: the tournament was not a priority.

Yalla Compass Qatar 2025 will be the first major tournament in 2025 to change the format from lan to online due to the oversaturation of the calendar. Despite the changes, it remains an important part of the VRS season and an example of adaptation to modern challenges in esports.