I'm not saying they do, but there is a lot of fishy evidence.
1) for a second time, the only teams from NA face off in round one of bracket play
2) there are only 2 teams from NA to begin with
3) last year the team that one masters 1 got to take another team to masters 2... this time EMEA gets 3 slots again without showing anything worthy last masters.
4) last year the winners of berlin sent another team from their region... this time the number of teams is locked without regard to performance in order to make room for SA which hadnt shown anything outside of KRU.... And this was decided before masters 1, even.
5) in the end, NA could win both masters and still only take 2 teams to champs... and with it being even harder for them to win both masters bc one is gping straight to the losers bracket no matter what.
I know EMEA has had to play each other in brackets a lot too, but it's not as egregious and you still have 3 teams without regard to performance