Did Valve add the wrong player's sticker to the game?
An hour ago Valve released the stickers for the Perfect World Shanghai Major to much fanfare, with 24 teams and 120 players having their stickers added to the game to mark the occasion. Players received stickers for this Major based on the five-man lineup teams submitted to Valve and Perfect World ahead of the RMRs with rosters being locked on September 7th.
As such, as discussed in a previous article, any players that were added as substitutes by teams and then used at the RMR in place of a starter are ineligible for stickers, with the original starter receiving the sticker instead. With stickers now released we can see Valve stuck to their guns on this policy, with Timofey "interz" Yakushin, Tim "nawwk" Jonasson, and Sebastian "Tauson" Tauson all missing out on stickers, however MIBR's Lucas "Lucaozy" Neves had his sticker added to the game despite being a substitute.
Dust2.us can confirm that having seen the roster form teams used to be submit rosters for the RMRs, Lucaozy was clearly listed as a substitute and then brought in to replace Breno "brnz4n" Poletto, there he should be ineligible for a sticker while brnz4n should have a MIBR sticker.
As Lucaozy was registered as a substitute in the same manner as interz, nawwk, and Tauson, his sticker being included in the game is very clearly an oversight, albeit one with some important implications.
Stickers are of course an incredibly lucrative cash source for Valve, players, and teams, the choice of who gets a sticker can mean the difference of a five or six figure payday. Additionally, if Valve were to remove the sticker the Lucaozy sticker could become highly collective, although history tells us Valve are more likely to replace it outright if they realize their mistake.
It remains to be seen if Valve addresses and resolves this issue but we would probably hold off on buying any Lucaozy until then.
