FaZe benched Håvard “rain” Nygaard ahead of ESL Pro League Season 22 Stage 2, planning to field Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken as his replacement. Shortly before their October 4th match versus G2, a dispute with ESL over roster eligibility forced FaZe to forfeit the opener.
The issue is simple. ESL rules for invites tied to Valve Regional Standings (VRS) require a majority of the five players listed on the team’s VRS roster at the July 7th invite date, at least three of five, to play the event. FaZe’s planned lineup overlapped with only two of those five, so swapping rain out broke the majority rule.
jcobbb benched
For EPL Season 22, the invited five man roster was this one from July 7th.
To comply with the 3-man core rule, FaZe had to bring back one of s1mple, EliGE or rain. With s1mple playing for BC.Game and EliGE now on Liquid, the only choice left was to bring back the recently benched rain.
FaZe reinstated rain for the rest of ESL Pro League and benched jcobbb to become compliant. Why they chose jcobbb instead of Twistzz, who replaced rain, is still not clear.
For the CS Asia Championships starting on October 14th, jcobbb will return to the starting lineup in place of rain, as intended when FaZe brought back Twistzz.
