EG may be headed to the RMR
Late this evening, Detonate announced that they were withdrawing from the BLAST.tv Paris Major Americas RMR after one player experienced difficulties in obtaining a passport and another had a medical emergency that prevents them from traveling. Due to Valve rules, the team cannot replace both players, so Detonate have had to recuse themselves from the qualifier event.
In accordance with the rulebook, Detonate's spot does not disappear, but is instead transferred to the next deserving team. In this case, Detonate's replacement is Evil Geniuses.
The Major rulebook specifically describes the situation of replacement teams in case one is unable to make it to the RMR.
The rule is under Appendix 3: Tournament Mechanics & Qualifications subset 2.1.2:
If a team declines an invitation, or is no longer intact, the next-highest ranked team receives their invitation. If there are no additional teams available, then the remaining slots are to be determined by a last-chance regional qualifier.
There are three ways of interpreting this, and in every scenario, Evil Geniuses should be the team invited to replace Detonate.
If BLAST and Valve interpret this to mean the highest ranked team from the Americas region that has yet to qualify, Evil Geniuses take the spot, as they sit at #6 on the latest Valve Rankings. Even using HLTV ranking gives Evil Geniuses the edge here, sitting at #39 in the world with the next closest American team without an RMR slot in 9z at #59.
If they simply decide to invite the highest placed team at the North American Closed Qualifier that did not obtain an RMR slot, that would also be Evil Geniuses.
If they decide to think about the entire Americas region as a whole, Evil Geniuses still wins out, as the highest placed team that did not obtain an RMR slot at the South American Closed Qualifier was 9z. For the same reasons as listed above, EG should take the RMR slot in this scenario as well.
The biggest inference is that Valve will not be using an updated ranking to determine the appropriate replacement for Detonate at this time. However, since there has been no update to the Valve rankings since February 12th, just before the Open Qualifiers began, it's unlikely that another update will come in time for this decision to be made.
By all accounts, Evil Geniuses should be replacing Detonate at the Americas RMR, giving them another shot to make BLAST.tv Paris Major. This would be a lifeline for the team who stumbled at the North American Closed Qualifier. With this news, Evil Geniuses could still be in contention to attend the last CS:GO Major.
