So the thing I'm wondering here is does the single import player rule completely prevent OCE players from getting into tier 1 outside of the single greatest cinderella promotion story of all time.
With the announced partnered teams for APAC, it would be a small miracle for one of the very clearly regionalized teams within APAC to sign an OCE team. Of course OCE players are able to play on any pacific team but given the nationality of teams likely to appear within APAC the number that would also communicate in English is roughly 0 (granted maybe I'm just unaware of some regions that prefer to com in English e.g. I remember hearing somewhere that a dominant French Overwatch preferred to com in English because it was more efficient).
Import rules prevent any team from having more than 1 import player from a different region on a team. Unfortunately for OCE this means that OCE players are going to be in direct competition for spots within American rosters (since imports are less common in EU and the cultural/language barrier is a lot less) with any other import players from EU and APAC players. If you were the GM of a partnered team would you rather hedge your single import slot on a tested EU veteran, a rising international star from APAC or take a punt on the one guy who looks really good in Tier 2 OCE.
As such I suggest that the best long term decision to support OCE players within Tier 1 Valorant would be to attach the region back to NA/Americas like 2021 LCQ so that they don't have to compete for the import roster slot in the most likely completive region to bring OCE players to Tier 1.
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