posted by Abelle,
A blog by Dota 2 coach and analyst Anthony "Scantzor" Hodgson pointed out a source of confusion for teams about this year's roster lock rules - namely that they didn't specify whether teams that changed their roster post-lock could still be invited to TI. Valve responded quickly with an updated point in their rules. https://t.co/dHSrdWlgldDota 2 rosters are now locked until after The International 8. But what does this actually mean? Valve have not been clear, and the rules that we do know of have some very undesirable consequences.— Anthony Hodgson (@scantzor) February 6, 2018


The post quickly made the front page of r/dota2. With the new points system and the less than clear roster lock rules, some had assumed that would be able to make late-season trades for players with points to give them a better chance at a TI invite. The gist of Scantzor's post is that if teams that make changes still earn points, why earn points at all if they cannot be used to earn an invite to TI?

The rule in question refers to the use of substitutes (for instance in cases where a team cannot get a visa for one or more members, or where one member is ill) but has so far mostly been applied to teams that make permanent roster changes. Valve's reply confirms that there is no reason for teams that change rosters to earn points from now through TI8 since their changed roster will force them through open qualifiers anyway.

Invites to The International (both direct and to regional qualifiers) are given to teams based on their registered roster. Teams that want to play with a roster that differs from their registered roster are ineligible for direct or regional qualifier invites to The International.— Wykrhm Reddy (@wykrhm) February 6, 2018


This added rule follows what we've seen with Valve's roster lock system in past years, but the lack of clarity made it difficult to know whether they intended the same thing this year. This has cleared things up but since it happened after rosters locked, teams were unable to take it into account during the actual shuffle period. As of Feb 5th, rosters have locked in and every team that hopes to be directly invited either to The International 2018 itself or even to the regional qualifiers must keep those rosters.

Header photo source: Valve

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    Abelle

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    Annabelle Fischer
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