Valve employee Vitaliy Genkin reached out to a collection of high-profile professional Counter-Strike players regarding possible changes to Valve’s coaching rule, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.
Valve announced in August a new rule to limit the amount of communication between coaches and players during play at Major and Minor tournaments. The change has received a significant amount of negative feedback, especially from teams who used their coaches as in-game leaders. Sources close to numerous legend-status players at the next Major have explained that Genkin contacted the players in regards to a possible revision of the rule and encouraged them to draft a response.
According to sources, players planned to meet in early October and send a reply that expressed their desire to allow coaches to communicate with players during the 15-second “freeze-time” periods before each round begins. Currently, coaches are only allowed to speak with players prior to the match start, at halftime and during one of four 30-second timeouts granted to each team.
The purpose of the rule, according to Valve, was to ensure the best five-player Counter-Strike teams are competing, though revising it to allow a 15-second window before each round is an oft-discussed compromise it seems many teams would welcome.
It is unclear at this time if any revision would be in place for the ELEAGUE Major in January, considering the first Minor tournament for the event has already taken place.
Slingshot has reached out to Genkin for comment and will update if he responds.
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