Phoenix Rising

I'll go through a lot of your points to respond here. "The region was the only one to grow in teams between S2 and S5 of the FACEIT League, in addition to now having its own space at CGL." FACEIT League is meant to be the T2 and below level of the OWCS circuit. With the current way FACEIT operates, it does not even offer official broadcasts outside of playoffs for NA/EMEA and relies on community run broadcasts for the most part. There may have been an increase in SA teams in FACEIT League over the course of S2 to S5, but if you compare NA to SA. NA had 72 teams total across all divisions, while SA had 21. Because NA also has OWCS, you could add 8 more teams for a grand total of 80 teams. I don't think an increase in teams say much when you are comparing 21 to 80, to be completely reasonable. When it comes to CGL? NA has CGL, BPL, etc for T4 players as well. It's great that SA has that, but it's more of a starting point for players than a place to refine talent to international standards. "It is also the only region to have a national Overwatch team tournament." It's cool that the SA community ran such a tournament, but that's simply a community tournament. EMEA ran some World Cup team showmatches after the World Cup ended that were unofficial a while back as well. (I worked with the Irish Team in a few of those matches). Again, there's nothing negative about this, but the existence of such a community tournament doesn't warrant a LAN slot compared to something like OWCS. "Additionally, SA was the region with the most teams in qualify for FACEIT Community Showdown NA in all its editions." I honestly did not know what the FACEIT Community Showdown even was until I looked it up. That's great that SA are competing in these tournaments, but these are small prize pool tourneys meant for the T3, maybe T2 level at max. These are all tournaments completely separated from the OW Esports ecosystem of FACEIT->OWCS so they are purely optional. Again, I just don't think this provides any sort of basis for having a LAN slot for SA. "Not having its own OWCS does not nullify or make the region non-existent. The fact that what happened in the EWC doesn't negate the region's existence." The region does exist, obviously there are players there. But much like PAC would be "dead" without OWCS and only FACEIT, SA is currently "dead" in its current state. Dead meaning "dead in the water" more than "completely nonexistent". SA is a functionally dead region that, granted, does receive an EWC slot each year and does get minimal support from FACEIT, but has been put into a position where growing and improving home talent is very difficult, if not impossible (to a T1 extent). Functionally, SA is dead, but that does not mean that needs to be the case forever. What I am really trying to argue is that simply providing a LAN slot to SA without a real circuit or OWCS support will just result in a beatdown each LAN event. Also, SA teams would qualify to LAN are unfortunately more likely to be teams that simply import from NA and include less home talent. That would be the case either way for a while even with an OWCS circuit, but a real circuit would allow for real improvement and support for the SA scene. A LAN slot on its own won't do enough on its own, in my opinion, to pull SA out its functional grave. "The region's lack of a slot in the OWCS Finals demonstrates the distorted view of the region from the perspective of those who don't live here." SA doesn't have an OWCS circuit. Of course it's not getting a slot in OWCS Finals over the regions of Japan and PAC that do have circuits. The regions of PAC and JP have been somewhat neglected by Blizzard already (PAC in particular), and need the LAN slot to stay alive. I don't know where you'd give SA a slot right now, but either way SA doesn't have OWCS, so I think that would be the better place to start anyways. Arguably far better to provide a real circuit to SA than to give them a LAN slot with where the region is at right now. Start with a foundation rather than starting at the very top. "If Blizzard and FACEIT treat the region with respect for its specificities, as they do with other regions, it will have its place." Other minor regions like PAC and JP have an OWCS circuit. That's where they should start. Giving SA a LAN slot at Stockholm isn't the way to go. Yes, SA have FACEIT right now, but I think we both know the the prize pools, casting situation, and environment is not suited to developing T1 level talent in the same way an OWCS Circuit with real prizing would. "SA is big in other esports, the only exception in OW2 is due to incompetence, not the region's fault." You're correct, and the place to start is an SA OWCS circuit. If Blizzard is ever willing to drop the resources for such a circuit in the future. Right now though, I think we need to make sure PAC in particular doesn't die out because it is at risk. If we get PAC and JP in a stable spot, properly integrating SA into the OWCS ecosystem is possible!