Valve Corporation, the developer of CS:GO, has recently introduced a new rule that will essentially influence the pro scene. Briefly speaking, now at all tournaments sponsored by the company, coaches can communicate with their teams only during the break, when changing sides and during one of the four 30-second time-outs on every map.

According to Valve, such a change is due to the current situation, where a coach has become more like a sixth player than a mentor. Teams are coordinated by coaches and not by team leaders. They manage everything, releasing players from problems with in-game coordination. However, this rule was followed by negative reaction from many CS:GO players and personalities, because the company introduced it without discussing it with the teams.

Dmitry "hooch" Bogdanov:
"To be honest, I was shocked by this update. It means that the teams where a coach is an actual coordinator, for example, Na’Vi, will suffer a lot since they will have to completely change their approach. Maybe Valve decided to do so because coaches can get information from an audience and transfer it to their teams. But in my opinion it would be more logical just to prevent them from getting this information and leave everything as it was. Valve states that their primary goal is to reveal the best players and combinations of their skills, but a coach is an essential part of a team, he makes it more interesting and mature. And it’s weird that the developers don’t see a link between work of coaches and progress in CS:GO. They say that if a coach manages the team’s economy and rounds, then he is a player himself. But I don’t see what prevents coaches from doing the same during the freezetime. The other thing is that coaches won’t be as impactful in mid-game as they used to be, which can influence the level of the play of some top teams."

However, the statement implies that the other tournament organizers don’t have to follow the rule. James Bardolph, Vice President of FACEIT, noted that this rule won't be used in the ECS league.

The new rule will come to action for the first time during ESL One New York, which will be held from September 30 to October 2.