ESL tackle online competitive integrity in rulebook change

A raft of changes have been made to ESL's rulebook, including better alignment with Valve's regional eligibility rules and an attempt to tackle competitive integrity in online play.

ESL has announced a plethora of changes to their rulebook, but the headline changes saw alignment with Valve's rules regarding regional eligibility and the addition of "integrity camera obligations" for online play.

Cheating in online play has become a hot topic as of late, with a recent example seeing ENCE raise integrity concerns ahead of their online YGames Pro Series Season 5 final. ESL has attempted to tackle this issue by reserving the right to require players to provide a camera view of their setup.

As for the regional eligibility update, this follows Valve's recent move to remove multi-region representation, where the developer dictated that teams that had a tie for regional representation would be assigned to the stronger region. ESL has followed suit.

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Integrity camera obligations

Regarding the "integrity camera obligations," ESL has said that players "may be required" to provide a "live camera feed showing their setup - including, but not limited to, their monitor, keyboard, mouse, and surrounding area."

ESL's rule reserves the right to provide specific requirements "on a case-by-case basis," and states that should a player be instructed to provide a camera, it is mandatory, with failure to comply resulting in possible disqualification.

Regional eligibility

Previously, ESL essentially allowed teams to choose which region they represented if they had no majority of citizenship among their players. If there was a tie for the home region, for example a team had two European players but also two Americas players, a team could select which region they represented.

Now, if there is a tie for regional representation, the team will be assigned to the strongest region, specifically the region with the most Major representation. In the aforementioned example, the team would be assigned to Europe.

For regions with subdivisions like the Americas, the same rules apply, the team is assigned to the strongest (most Major representation) subregion represented in the event of a tie.

Any player whose citizenship does not fall under one of the three main regions, for example a South African player, will be assigned to the weakest region represented on the team. If the South African player was playing on a team with two Europeans and two Americas players, they would be assigned to the Americas.

Seeding and invites

ESL has made a couple of changes to the seeding process for their events.

In the case where a tournament uses VRS for seeding, the specific VRS update used to seed the event will now be communicated ahead of time, rather than using the latest update available at the time of seeding.

In tournaments where teams seed each other, instead of flipping a coin in the event of two teams tying for seeding, the team with the higher global VRS (in the latest update) will get the higher seed.

Regarding invites, ESL have provided further clarification on invites to teams that are based on regional VRS lists. Teams that would qualify for two subregional invites, e.g. North America and South America, will see the invite for the stronger (more Major representation) subregion prioritized, in this case South America.

For events that include multiple VRS criteria, e.g. global invites as well as regional invites, regional invites take priority. If a team invited regionally drops out, the next best team from that region that has already accepted a VRS Global invite will be moved to that slot, and a new team will be invited via the global VRS.

Finally, teams invited based on the VRS must retain at least three out of the five core players listed in the VRS on the invite date.