Valve sponsored events to have limited coach-player communication

In an email to ESL, Valve have called for adjustments in communications between players and their coach at Valve-sposored tournaments.​

Valve have recently ruled that coaches are no longer allowed to be permanently present throughout Valve-sponsored LAN events. Instead, they are now only able to communicate with their players during the warm up phase, half time and newly introduced 30 second breaks, of which teams have four per map. The justifying statement for this implementation was:



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With unrestricted commuinication with their players, coaches can currently function as a sixth player, and not solely as a source of guidance or training. Activities such as keeping track of the economy, calling plays, and general situational awareness are important components of CS gameplay. If a person is performing these actions, we consider them a player.

This introduction will seriously affect teams that are known for their impactful coaches such as NiP's Björn "THREAT" Pers, Liquid's Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu and Na'Vi's Sergey "starix" Ischuk, among others.

ESL have adopted the same rules as outlined above, however miscellaneous tournaments are free to impose rulings of their own regarding the coaching role. This will mean that at the next ESL-organised event, namely ESL One: New York, teams will not be able to use coaches apart from the periods of time stated in the rules.

The full email from Valve may be found below:

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With unrestricted commuinication with their players, coaches can currently function as a sixth player, and not solely as a source of guidance or training. Activities such as keeping track of the economy, calling plays, and general situational awareness are important components of CS gameplay. If a person is performing these actions, we consider them a player.

Since the goal of our events is to identify the best five-player CS teams that exhibit the best combination of all CS skills, the current participation of coaches in the game is not compatible with that goal. To address this problem, future Valve sponsored events will enforce the following coaching rules:



During a match, the coach may only communicate with the players during warmup, half-time, or during one of four 30 second timeouts that the coach or player can call.



Obviously, third party events can use whatever rules they want but if you want to align your events with ours then we recommend using this coaching rule.

Ido Magal ”