The Danish team Astralis announced a roster of seven people to participate in IEM Katowice. It is noteworthy that it included a young player Mads “vester” Vestergard, who previously played in the youth team. Kasper Hvidt, one of the leaders of Astralis, explained that this decision should be viewed more as a symbolic rather than a new strategy. By announcing this roster, the team wants to emphasize that the development of young players is of great importance to it, but it is unlikely that a nineteen-year-old eSports player will actually take part in matches.
Hvidt commented on the composition of the roster as follows: “We want to indicate that Astralis Talent – one with our esports organization… We don't expect vester to actually enter the game and it would probably be too early to assume he's ready to play against top teams yet. Of course, if we find ourselves in a situation where one of the other players is out of action for some reason, we will not hesitate to include them in the game. But otherwise, it’s unlikely that he will be on the active roster.
According to the current rules of professional ESL tournaments, a team can have up to two reserve players in addition to the main roster. This rule is used not only by Astralis: for example, NiP also announced a roster of seven people.
