South America are represented solely by Dragons Esports in Sapporo.
South America has a sole team representative at the ALGS Championship in Sapporo, Japan. The region had two teams per ALGS Playoff event, after losing its dedicated Pro League at the start of ALGS Year 4. Instead, the region has a Challenger Circuit style format with teams battling it out in a Regional Finals for those two LAN slots.
Three South American teams featured at across the two LAN events. However, only one accumulated enough Playoff Points to advance. That team did originally feature Kurev, who was poached by Team Liquid.
While that move does expand the South American representation, there is a lot of attention on Dragons Esports who are flying the flag for the region at the ALGS Championship in Japan.
Will South America see a further exodus?
After the announcement that South America wouldn't have a Pro League, several key players attempted to relocate to other regions. There was mixed success for these players, with many eventually returning to compete or retiring all together.
Panic of Dragon's Esports said he has also considered relocation. "Yeah, I thought about moving to Europe like a year ago because I feel like it's a region where I could perform, not like in NA, which is the hardest in my opinion."
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Dragons Esports Panic feels an Americas Pro League could be the solution
That challenging North American region was a direct challenge for South American teams during the BLGS. The two regions combined together to form an Americas region, which could be a way for South American teams to once again have a Pro League. Panic says that while that would be a good opportunity for those players the ping is a major disadvantage.
"It's really different from only playing against the SAs. It's harder. Also the 200 ping we have makes it harder...It would be possible [to play with NA], but of course the SA teams will have a disadvantage. But it's still playable. it would be good, instead of not playing anything."
What happens to the South America region as the ALGS plows forward is yet to be seen. With so few slots, qualifying to Champs is a tall order. With so few opportunities, players like Kurev will continue to feel they need to look elsewhere to compete.
Panic and Dragons Esports will have to fight hard to continue flying the flag for South America. They look to save their tournament in the Elimination Round 1 on Friday. Stay tuned to esports.gg for full coverage of the ALGS Championship in Sapporo, Japan and all things Apex Legends.
