One of the major points of organizing an event like this is to bring the experience of competitive play to a often forgotten demographic of conventional gamers. People that are students, workers, parents, etc, whose lives aren’t perfectly tailored around gaming like pro-players’.
We want to give all participants a glimpse of what it's like to build a competitive team. Everything from being put on a stage (virtual in our case), to having access to top secret things behind the stage such personal coaching, constructing spreadsheets that analyses players strengths and weaknesses to then build smart and creative strategies, etc.
All of this can only flourish on the promise that this rule will be respected.
Like many major professional leagues/tournament, when a player leaves a team, either willingly or not, that player cannot participate under the banner of another team until the event is over.
One of the reason for this is to ensure that no team gets an unfair strategic advantage by gaining an asset that had access to information that may influence a new type of game style over their ex-team.
But more importantly this rule gives Captains a stable foundation to build and shape their teams with. Since players will know that their teammates will be loyal and not betray them intentionally or unintentionally, they will be more prone to fully invest their knowledge, energy and time without the fear of a leak looming.
With this in mind, organisers strongly encouraged Captains to get familiar with their candidates over a long recruitment phase before accepting players onto their teams. A similar trend was promoted to players that wanted to compete. A list of all recruiting teams was provided and potential players were encouraged to explore those twitch channels to find the right team.
Organisers have judged it essential to have this rule to make this new type of competition feel professional and enjoyable at all levels. Therefore, this point will not be non-negotiable. If you choose to leave a team after the competition has started, you may not join another team until the next season of Heroes of the Stream.