Closing up on the Boston Major, almost all teams are registering substitute players for their teams with Valve's new substitution rule.
After compLexity Gaming and MVP Phoenix announced the changes in their playing squads for the Boston Major, all the teams participating in the upcoming Major have started announcing their substitute players. It may be expected that for a majority of these teams, the substitute player will not come into play if their five members do not have any internal or visa issues leading up to the event. Valve's substitution rule, while being criticized by many for being unfair, is definitely allowing teams to make some interesting changes. In less than a day, about five teams have announced their substitute players.
Starting off from Evil Geniuses and perhaps the most exciting substitute for this Boston Major will be no other than the Old Man himself - Clinton 'Fear' Loomis. Having announced his retirement from professional Dota after this year's International, Fear remained involved with the boys of Evil Geniuses as their coach, a position he shall take up in the Boston Major as well. OG, who were directly invited to the Boston Major, have also added their coach Sébastien '7ckingMad' Debs as a substitute member of their roster. In a surprising turn of events, Digital Chaos have replaced their substitute player - Jake 'SirActionSlacks' Kanner - who was part of the squad which were the grand finalists at the International, with William 'Blitz' Lee, who has also been coaching the team.
A legendary player returning to the Major in the form of a substitute is the addition of Xu 'BurNIng' Zhilei in iG Vitality, who managed to qualify for the major through the Chinese qualifier. Although the team's roster looks in form and strong together, yet BurNIng's return to professional Dota can be witnessed in case of visa issues for any of the Chinese players. Another Chinese team that has announced their substitute for the Boston Major is LGD.Forever Young who have registered one of the all-time best midlaners, Lu 'Maybe' Yao, as their sixth player for the Boston Major.
While almost all the teams going to the Major are announcing their substitute players, what really matters is how many of these substitute players actually get to play for their teams. It would also be interesting to see how this new and rather controversial substitution rule of Valve impacts future tournaments and whether it is changed or not after this major.
