I'm sorry my bro but I disagree with a lot you said here, even if I agree on the most important part : what we need to target.
To resume it fastly, you basically you want 6 region wish is basically going to 16 teams instead of 12 with extra step.
First not giving the same treatment to EMEA to Americas even if EMEA have a bigger payerpool than Amer make no sense. (At least make EU vs TR+MENA+CIS)
Second, putting 2 more team in South Americas and North Americas a first sounds like a good idea, I even made 3 video talking about going to 16 teams for every region ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Yi7oKDdR8 americas one), but more I think about it, more I've changed my mind, if you add more NA teams or more SA team, you are just gonna make the slice of the cake thinner and diluting the level. The only reason it could be a good thing to add more team, is that if you want to give a chance to a market that have no team in Tier 1 yet and that you will loose on long term if not (Just replace LEV by E-xolos/Lyon/6K and we are good since only LAN isnt represented), if you want to talk about the ping problem, they their could have solution and location that could solve it, but thats a long subject (Yeah, they are a way, for T1 team to be in a location where they will both scrim NA and BR team with 40ping)
3rd, "No "ascension" teams, if you're bottom 2 in the region, you get sent to ascension no matter the org or team"
Thats actually an horrible idea, and make best region snowball on smaller one, Japanese team would simply disapear and create a snowball effect. Plus you would also loose a lot of investor. The current system partner + ascention is the best one, we have both the stability of a closed league and the storytelling of cinderela teams. The current main problem is that they are too mush partner and not enough ascention team, that lead to a good team that could be relegated. But this can be solve by just changing the nbumber of partner team as Faria did proposed.
4th, problem the team that you picked in Asia, Asia is arguably the only region in the world that currently need more team, for 2 reason : They are the most competitive one, and they are some market that are NOT represented in Tier 1. The main problem in Asia is that we don’t have Oceanian team in APAC despite having a lot of descent player that are forced to be imports in other region.
5th, Champions Stage (24 teams):
With your system, they are 48 team in teir 1, you cant make a champions where half of team are qualified.
Other problem about format, I like 4 group of 6, but if you qualify top 4, the last game will be only seeding games wish is no importance, instead you should do top 2 go in winner bracket, mid 2 go in lower bracket, so we keep stakes until the last game
6th, "In terms of import rules, some regions will get the hong kong/taiwan treatment, where because of geographical, political, cultural, or other reasons"
I can agree with that, but are you sure Kazakh and Uzbeck play on Asian server ? It seems the EMEA server are always the clothes (Mumbai, may be the only exception). The best exemple is Russia, some player dont hjave the choice and have to play on Japan, (They even have a specific Japan EMEA server), I think in case of Russia, only player that have 50 % (Could be 80 % if you want hire) of their game in Japan have to be counted as Asian
7th "Additionally, some north/central american countries like mexico or dominican republic would be non import for both na and sa, bc a mexican team technically would be part of na"
No they are a part of Latin America north, not part of NA, we don’t need to change the T2 boundary, they are good as it is, no need to give the Taiwan treatment there, SouthAm is weak enough, to cut them LAN T2 region. To be fair, if I would listen to my mind I would go even further and be even more restrictive on the import policy, and consider any T1 team is bound to a Tier2, and have to have at least 3 players from that T2 to preserve structure identity and not end as Leviantan or GE. In Europe it will depend on what you consider a T2 since we have EMEA master that is now the real T2.
8th "Overall, I want the regions to feel more geographically, competitively, and culturally balanced"
Your goal are noble and I agree with it. But the prescription you gave will make things worse, EMEA will be more competitive because the talent will be diluted elsewhere while Americas will become the weakest region. Japan will totally disappear of the surface of Valorant globe with the end of Partner.
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Some playerbase statistics (excluding China and Africa)
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EU : 23,4 % (5T2 cumulated, CIS inside)
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TR : 6,4 %
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MENA : 1 % (Regularly increasing)
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CIS (It’s hard to estimate CIS, last time i’ve check it seems it was currently around 5 %, but it will be really higher, the day they have their own T2 and premier region, I’ll come back with more recent datas)
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Africa : (No data, but will be a HUGE market to consider in the future, I don’t know why they dont have a premier region even if they have server)
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NA : 13,5 % (Regularly decreasing)
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LAN : 2,9 %
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LAS : 6,2 %
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BR : 7,8 %
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KR : 12,1 % (Regularly increasing)
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JP : 4,8 %
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OCE 1,9 % (Dying because no T1 team)
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SEA : 12,9 % (Slightly underrated by the metrics)
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SA : 7,1 % (Regularly increasing)
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