Rand will be forced to delay his plans to strike at SG the day after Merrilor.

He will thus have no choice but to deal with problems he meant precisely to by-pass by striking so early at Shai'tan, then the Light could eliminate the Forsaken, their armies, and deal with the Seanchan.

This won't happen, because Rand is convinced Merrilor fulfills the answer of the Aelfinn but he's wrong. The winning conditions aren't met, they won't be met until Mat brings the Seanchan north, so he won't be able to go forward with his early strike.

This means many problems will have to be dealt with.. including limiting damages by destroying (and fast) all the Waygates. This would mean the Shadowspawn armies in the land would be trapped, and the Shadow would be forced to rely on Dreadlords and Portal Stones. Portal Stones require a lot of Power, thus circles, to move around large forces fast. Less numerous, the PS are much easier to keep watch on, and send strike teams to the minute the Shadow starts to send armies through one.

Destroying the Ways would go much faster and effectively with approval of the Ogier Elders and Ogier guides so many strike teams could act in parallel instead of having Karldin as the only guide, especially since it's likelyt the Shadow already holds many Waygates. Locating and destroying the Waygates in the Blight is another obvious goal. This would not only stop Shadowspawn armies from pouring out of there, but it also prevent a return of large Shadowspawn to the Blight at some point.

Destroying the Waygates would also mean massive numbers of Shadowspawn would be trapped inside...

Anyway.. .whatever Rand's exact contingency plan for the Waygates issue will be, he's about to need the Ogier soon.

IMO, he will soon send Perrin to meet with them at Tsofu and expose the current situation. Many Ogier Elders have made a terrible decision when they refused Loial killed the Waygates slowly (not that this solution has worked either, not in Caemlyn anyway) and insisted only to guard them. The Ogier hate change, and for cultural reasons were unable to see these now useless remnant of their past needed to be destroyed for everyone's good.

I don't know how the core of Elders will react to news of Caemlyn having fallen because of a Waygate (if Caemlyn is the only city that's fallen by then...) but Loial will be crushed by guilt (not really his fault, but Loial is always very keen to take everyone's faults on his shoulders) and horror when he learns about Caemlyn.

I think Perrin's arrival at the Great Stump will fulfill a very old (EOTW) Viewing of him surrounded by trees.