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Quoted from skeej

I guess this is the first valid complaint against increasing the possible mercs amount. My counter argument is that, outside of the catch-up week, any player can be added to the roster 24 hours in advance, and not count as a merc. Added players like Brego and Luzzu never pcw’d with us at all, how are they more part of the team?

I will counter this with pointing towards the hijack rule that does not allow to replace the majority of your team anyway. If you are so short on players that you need 4 new players you are not allowed to add them due to the hijack rule (or should at least consult an admin first to get the roster changes approved, like Crack Clan did, for example).
Quoted from skeej

But ultimately it’s just as arbitrary. More than 1 person is semantically a team, at least half the players makes a team, etc. Actually ETF2L proves how arbitrary it is, because “more than half of the players” would mean that: max mercs for highlander is 4. It is currently 3.

As I stressed a TF2 team has to field 6 players, not only more than 1! I am not sure if it makes much sense to add highlander to this discussion as so far nobody complained that he is only allowed to use max 3 mercs but you are right that the decision is ultimately arbitrary. I think the “more than half” argument is stronger than the “anything more than 2 is a team” argument :)
Quoted from skeej

My point is that when a rule is undocumented, don’t hand out a punishment without looking at the circumstances.
…
If you want to blindly punish a team for breaking a rule, do so by pointing to a set-in-stone rulebook. This brings me back to the start: this is why I am asking for both more rule/punishment clarification, and a change of the merc rule.

I linked you the rule that comes closest to this case in my previous answer. I do, however, agree with you that the rule could be rewritten into “Teams caught using an unregistered merc, a merc without their opponent’s permission or three merc at the same time will receive a default loss and a warning.”

I am against a complete punishment catalogue though because a) we can not write down any possible offense and b) I do not want teams to calculate with punishments. The aim should be to play by the rules and be a good sport and not to break a rule if you can afford it without serious consequences.

Also, we can not always take circumstances into account because we always need to expect that teams use a case where we took the circumstances into account as a precedent to justify their violation. There are even few cases where we consider all facts, e.g. the hijack rule is not blindly applied but teams have to consult the staff. Most of these request have been answered positively, by the way.

Quoted from skeej

But what if you have loads of players on your roster already? Who decides who the main players are? I think being able to contact an admin to use an emergency extra merc for a single situation should be possible too, just as there is leeway in replacing a great part of your roster.

Would you be surprised that we look at the players from the previous matches to try to recognise some kind of core roster? ;) Yes, of course this is a bit arbitrary again but you can not eliminate all arbitrariness. Teams that add many new players but do not kick any will be reviewed as well, supposing the roster additions are noticed.
Quoted from skeej

How about making the merc rule the same as the roster hijack rule? If you need to use more than 2 mercs, contact an admin beforehand. If opponent team agrees, if admin can empathize with the circumstances, then what should be the problem? This is especially true during the catchup week where rosters are locked and wildcards disabled.

I think something like “up to 3 mercs are allowed from the last play week on, if the opponent agrees and on admin discretion” could work.

y u post if u no care

Quoted from Farah

y u post if u no care

I do care, I don’t care about the admins lame responses.

Solution to this is simple:

Stack your roster with every player who currently isn’t in a team but near/on your skill-level. That way you have in-house not-counting-as-mercs-mercs and still got the option to request two!

There is always roughly one ‘full’ team that is teamless and on your div, so should be fine.

Also blabla videogames blabla hippies blabla dictator admins blabla hats.