FaZe forfeit ESL Pro League Season 22 match against G2

FaZe have forfeited their match vs. G2 at ESL Pro League Season 22 Stage 2, the tournament organizer announced.

Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken was set to make his FaZe debut in this match, but it seems that FaZe aren't allowed to use their current lineup in the event.

Twistzz was listed as a substitute, but by removing Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard to include him, FaZe only have two out of the five players (Finn "karrigan" Andersen and David "frozen" Čerňanský) from the lineup that was invited on July 7th. And that is against the ESL Pro Tour rules.

• ESL Pro Tour CS General Rules, Rule 2.28:

Teams invited based on the Valve Regional Standings must retain at least three out of the five core players listed in the VRS on the Invite Date.

• ESL Pro Tour CS Roster Restrictions, Rule 2.4

Once a participant plays for the first time in a qualifier, their lineup has to contain a majority of that first lineup until the end of the main event, throughout all qualifiers and stages of the event. This also implies that an organisation that tried and failed to qualify with one team is not allowed to sign a new team to still take part in the event.

The above lineup restriction also applies for participants that were invited to the event or a later stage of the qualifiers, in that case the default lineup of the participant at the time of the invitation or a specific lineup named in context with the invitation is relevant. Invited participants are considered the same as if they had played throughout the entire qualifier process up until the stage that they have been invited to.

According to HLTV, FaZe's decision to forfeit was taken after the team and ESL discussed what lineup the team is allowed to use at EPL S22.

However, it remains unclear why ESL let this situation drag on until hours before the FaZe vs. G2 match, rather than telling FaZe beforehand that rain couldn't be swapped for Twistzz.

After all, FaZe made it very clear that Twistzz was going to play at EPL, and he even attended Media Day. But, ultimately, it's FaZe's responsibility to read the rulebook and abide by it.

By all looks of it, rain will have to fly to Stockholm, so that FaZe can play the remainder of their EPL S22 matches.