Each region has 4 ascension slots, at the end of the year the 2 ascension teams with the least champs points have to play in the ascension playoffs, with the top 2 teams qualifying. The catch is that if either of the bottom 2 teams have a positive head to head record against one of the top 2 ascension teams in their region they can challenge them to a best of 3 series with serious map ban disadvantage (if they somehow have a positive record against both they challenge the team that has less points) if they win this series the team they challenged has to play in ascension instead for them, but if they lose they are automatically relegated and the top 3/4 teams from ascension are brought up instead.