With the dropoff in EU VCLs' viewership, the gap between (some) leagues' best and worst teams, and the fact that EU countries/regions are obviously closer to each other, there's a necessity for a region-wide T2 league, while keeping VCLs as the 3rd division.
Here's my suggestion for how it could work.
16 teams, 2 splits with playoffs and an ascension playoff at the end, all except the Ascension playoff played online (sorry TR and MENA)
For 2024, it would be all the teams from Ascension (the 2 losers of the playin groups with better score would play a Bo1/Bo3 shootout match, with the winner making it in, and the loser would play a Bo5 decider against the other group loser.)
Both splits would have 2 single round robin groups, with an 8 team DE playoff, and both splits would award points.
Winners or both splits' playoffs would play the Ascension playoff, and the other 2 teams would be decided via the point rankings. (Not sure when that is, but at some point apparently 2 teams are supposed to be promoted from Ascension, so when that happens, the Ascension playoff, would expand from 4 to 6, 4 of the teams via point rankings.)
For the first split of each year, the worst 2 teams would play a Bo5 decider, the loser playing the Mid-Season Relegation along with 9 VCL winners, playing for one spot in Split 2.
For Split 2, the 3 worst teams from each group would go to Relegation, and the 5th placed teams would play a Bo5 decider, with the loser also playing Relegation. Joined by the 9 VCL winners, they would play for X spots for next year's Split 1.
(The number of spots would vary, for 2025, there would be 8 spots, for 2026 there would be teams returning from VCT, and then later when 2 teams start getting promoted, a different number of spots again.)
Alternatively, in Turkey and MENA could have their own leagues to avoid ping issues.
Thanks for your attention
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