As previously reported, just before the start of VCS Summer 2024, Riot announced the merging of regions starting from the 2025 season, along with the launch of a new tournament. This news immediately captured significant attention from the League of Legends community, especially in the regions that are set to merge. VCS could potentially become part of the joint APAC region alongside PCS, LJL, and others to compete for spots in international tournaments such as MSI or Worlds. While this had been anticipated, it has sparked extensive discussion, and of course, the merger is entirely unrelated to the recent match-fixing scandal in Vietnamese League of Legends.
Recently, during the announcement of the roster for VCS Summer 2024, Team Whales made a surprising announcement: two foreign players from LCK will join the VCS representatives. Unlike some previous cases, these two foreign players are considered to be of high quality, and one of them has even been a champion of the LCK Challengers – the second-highest quality tournament in Korea, right after the main LCK. Many viewers hope that with the merger into APAC and by performing well, VCS could see an increase in foreign players at the largest League of Legends tournament in Vietnam.
However, in reality, VCS has been on the radar of foreign players from other regions for some time now. Only those lacking knowledge about League of Legends would believe that VCS is of lower quality than PCS or LJL – regions flooded with foreign players, especially from LCK. Nonetheless, the main factor hindering the presence of foreign players in Vietnamese League of Legends is the labor laws concerning foreign nationals.
Take the case of TW mentioned above as an example. As of now, the two foreign players of TW still do not know when they can debut in the “Whale” colors at VCS this year. This situation is tied to much larger macro factors, and merging into APAC is unlikely to resolve it. If anything, merging into APAC would simply provide VCS an opportunity to assert the strength of Vietnamese League of Legends, and there’s a reason why Riot allowed VCS to separate into its own region in the past.
Merging into APAC could increase competition and quality in the region. However, it is unrelated to the future of foreign players in VCS. In fact, the tournament will need to be even more selective to avoid unfortunate situations like those that have occurred in the past.