Mexico and South America restructures to LATAM North and South in T2-3 tournaments

_{Image via Ubisoft/@itsmeERROR}

As announced on March 10th, the Latin American region has seen a notable change with the tier-two Liga Six and LATAM Cup tournaments for Mexico and South America being replaced by LATAM North and LATAM South tournaments.

While the competitions themselves have remained the same, the change sees Mexican players be joined by players from Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.

This leaves the following countries to compete in the LATAM South region; Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Paraguay, Chile, and Bolivia.

Previously, all listed countries other than Mexico competed together in the South American sub-region whereas now they’ve been split in a more geographically logical way. A map of the regional splits can be seen below:

 

In practice, this means that this week saw the very first LATAM North and South open tournaments with Mexican teams facing a number of Colombian and Costa Rican teams rather than just their fellow countrymen. 

These cups will continue each stage with the winners qualifying for the LATAM North and LATAM South Cups where the Northern teams will meet six Mexican Championship rosters while the Southern rosters meet six teams from the South American Championship.

During Stage 3 the Mexican and South American Challenger League tournaments have also been replaced by LATAM North and South Challenger Leagues which strongly implies this North and South change will replace the Mexican and South American Championships themselves in the 2023 Season.

This is a major benefit to players from Honduras or Guatemala for example who will now get to play on more appropriate south central US servers rather than south Brazilian servers.

 

Currently there are no South American Championship players from a country classified as LATAM North or Mexican Championship players from a LATAM South country as the ping differences limited the crossover of talent. This means the change likely won’t break up any teams or force notable teams to switch regions but will make it easier for Central American players to compete professionally. 

This is a change that’s likely been planned for some time with Ubisoft referring to LATAM South a number of times during 2020 and 2021 and now we’re finally seeing it come to fruition.