We recently saw a rule implemented to address a regulatory loophole regarding teams like DRILLAS, and now it appears another rule might be necessary for the team Wildcard.
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In recap, last year prior to the Shanghai Major, DRILLAS competed at the Asia RMR even with a European roster. They qualified with a mix consisting of an Asian core (from Israel and Morocco), only to swap out a player right before the competition.
Valve responded promptly, introducing a rule to shield against manipulative substitutions that might shift a team’s regional assignment.
Weeks later, Valve supplemented these regulations for multi-regional teams, eliminating the freedom to select their qualification region based on their majority. Below is the revised rule:
In instances where a team qualifies through multiple regional VRS, they will be recognized under the region yielding the most representatives in the Major (such as Europe > Americas > Asia).
What this implies is that a team with a split-majority is accredited from the region that ensures them the earliest stage entry into the Major.
However, weeks before the invitation cutoff for the BLAST.tv Austin Major, Wildcard found themselves precariously holding fifth in the Americas standings. Despite remaining there, it would have sufficed for direct participation in Stage 2; however, M80 was in close pursuit.
Dropping from fifth would have catastrophic implications for Jarguz’s leadership, as they share a split majority of players from Americas and Europe, as well as one from South Africa. Falling under Stage 2 invitations would have redirected them into a more challenging European major regional qualifier instead of the relatively easier North American one.
To circumvent this reality, Wildcard leveraged the system. Ensuring that they qualify only as an Americas team during the critical ranking update, they altered their last tournament lineup shortly before the major cutoff for the PGL Astana NA closed qualifier.
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This usage caused the Valve rankings to classify Stewie2K as integral to Wildcard’s legitimate roster, reclassifying the team’s core from a blended Americas-Europe to a strictly Americas one. Eventually, by the removal from the fifth-place cut-off with M80 overtaking them in the final head-to-head, they were granted entry to the N. American MRQ.
This situation unveils a larger issue at hand. While ideally, Wildcard would have remained competitive with an Americas core during the major qualifier, they opted not to play their true lineup in the Astana qualifier.
Despite the temporary setback, they later revert to the original lineup, featuring phzy, and qualified through the NA qualifier for the Austin Major with the split core intact.
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Despite the plausibility of such tactical maneuvers, this evidently contradicts the core principle of the recent rule intended to deter teams like Wildcard or Liquid from arbitrarily selecting their representation region.
Many argue that Wildcard’s invitation to the North American qualifier again appears to conflict with another rule enforced to prevent teams from modifying regional representation after qualifying, akin to DRILLAS:
If a team is invited based on their Regional Standing, at least three out of the five core members must accept the invitation, maintaining compliance with the original regional requirements, or else the invite shifts to the next ranked team within the region.
It’s understood that Wildcard no longer matched the original regional criteria since the resulting lineup submitted for the North American qualifier would have fallen under the European qualifier had it been scrutinized at the time of invitation.
Yet there is an option to interpret this differently: that Wildcard followed the original criteria, as the roster including phzy would still appear on the Americas VRS, granting them the invitation.
This highlights how the wording of such rules leaves wriggle room for varied interpretations, contributing to the leniency ultimately observed.
Ultimately, this exposes an ongoing miscalculation in the VRS model, accepting a single stand-in as part of the team roster, which is leading to complications as illustrated by Nexus’ waiting ordeal before they could engage a new player.
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