Strike #7: What happens if a player qualifies for a Major with two teams?

An unprompted email from Valve cleared up a key question about the new Major roster rules.

Strike is a (not so) regular column written by HLTV Editor-in-chief Milan "Striker" Švejda, which focuses on new realities of a Valve-regulated circuit.

A few HLTV Confirmed episodes ago, when talking about the Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski-Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken swap between FaZe and Liquid, we contemplated the implications of the move prior to the StarLadder Major cut-off and what the teams would need to do to make sure they'd be allowed to play with their new lineups in Budapest.

Before this Major cycle, the answer was simple: They'd have to do nothing because teams were allowed to make two changes between the invitation and roster submission deadlines.

But after the BLAST.tv Austin Major, Valve changed the rules to require registered rosters to match the invited ones as they appear on the related Valve Regional Standings, removing the possibility of making any changes to rosters past the point of invitation, other than registering a different coach or substitute.

For Liquid, the situation was all the more complicated because they couldn't register an American substitute due to pre-existing rules that require teams to retain their regional assignment in case of any substitution.

So before the October 6 cut-off, Liquid had to play five matches (the number needed for the VRS to update a roster) with EliGE at Birch Cup and replaced Twistzz on the VRS, while FaZe already played five matches with Jakub "⁠jcobbb⁠" Pietruszewski instead of EliGE at FISSURE Playground 2 before that.

A disaster was avoided, but the situation brought up a crucial question: What would have happened if one of the players ended up on both team rosters, say if FaZe dropped out of FISSURE and couldn't get EliGE off their lineup in time?

I didn't realize the answer until I recently got an unexpected email from Valve about it. It turns out it's not as ambiguous as I first believed.

Here's the email:

"Just wanted to touch on something I heard on Confirmed," — hey, they watch HLTV Confirmed. Who would have thought?

"If a player is a member of several VRS rosters, then only one of those rosters can accept a Major invitation, because 'registered rosters must be intact' and 'registered rosters must match the invited rosters.' We don't see an alternate interpretation of the rules, but if you do then we'd want to hear it, because the above is definitely the intention."

So, the answer is: One of the teams with a duplicate player would be forced to give up the Major invite.

When I got the email, my first thought was that the stance was extreme. Teams are allowed to register a substitute, after all, and that has served as a way to enact last-minute roster changes in the past, like when Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev came in for Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants on FaZe and Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis for Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros on FURIA before Austin.

But it also makes sense for Valve to take a hard line on Major lineups at a time when the incentive to game the VRS in ways that circumvent core requirements has never been higher, when it now decides invites for the whole circuit.

That is probably why the rule was changed in the first place. I pointed it out to Valve in Austin that it would be possible for a bad actor to play the Major with an entirely new roster. Change two players just in time for them to appear on the invitation ranking, then two more on the roster submission, and substitute out the fifth at the Major and, voilà, you're playing with five players that did not earn their spot.

That would be crazy, right? It was bad enough that some teams abused the substitution to circumvent the majority rule and played the Major with just two out of five eligible players.

Note for accuracy: The above is still theoretically possible now; you just need to make two changes five matches in advance of the invitation ranking.

I ultimately don't have such big qualms with it anymore as long as teams realize the potential downfall of a last-minute swap and play their cards carefully before a Major cut-off.

But I did point out one potential window for abuse of this new rule, which could theoretically allow a team to take their competition out of the Major. Let's say such a bad actor would execute the buyout clause of a player at a time when they can still update their own roster on the ranking, but the targeted team has nothing left to play.

That would result in the player appearing on both rosters, and because the team with the active contract with said player would be the only one capable of turning up with the submitted roster, the targeted team would have to give up their Major spot.

All in all, it is a good thing for Major rosters to adhere to stricter requirements, but it should not come at the cost of one team's actions potentially affecting the fate of another. Is there a solution?