Danish team Astralis has announced a seven-man roster for IEM Katowice. Notably, it included a young player Mads «vester» Vestergaard, who previously played in the team's youth squad. Casper Hvidt, one of Astralis' executives, explained that the decision should be seen more as symbolic rather than a new strategy. By announcing this roster, the team wants to emphasize that developing young players is important to them, but that it is unlikely that a nineteen-year-old cyber athlete will actually participate in matches.
Hvidt commented on the roster composition as follows: «We want to signify that Astralis Talent – is one with our cybersports organization… We don't expect vester to actually enter the game and it would perhaps be too early to assume that he is already ready to play against top teams. Of course, if we find ourselves in a situation where one of the other players is out of action for whatever reason, we won't hesitate to include them in the game. But otherwise he is unlikely to be on the active roster».
According to the current rules of ESL professional tournaments, a team can have up to two substitutes in addition to the main roster. Not only Astralis use this rule: for example, NiP also announced a seven-man roster.