ESL Australia has revealed that the ESL Australia & New Zealand Championships will be back in 2017 with three seasons for the Oceanic region.

The current Tainted Minds lineup won the first two editions of the championships in 2016 during their former Athletico days. Unfortunately, they will not be back for the third season to retain their crown due to being a part of the ZEN League. The same ruling goes for the other Australian ZEN teams (Chiefs, Immunity and Dark Sided).

The third season of the ESL AU&NZ Championship will include a seven-week online league of eight teams, where all participants will compete against each other on Monday and Thursday nights local time - striving for a spot in the LAN Finals and a chance for $10,000 AUD (~$7.6k) in cash prizes.

 
ESL Australia stepping up their game with more events for their region 

Six teams have been invited to the league, as followed:

AVANT	Legacy OCE	Alpha Sydney	Corvidae
Cypher	Exile5	Closed Qual #1	Closed Qual #2

The remaining two spots will be decided through an invite-only closed qualifier of eight other Oceanic teams, which the organiser will reveal later this week. The online qualifier will commence from February 18-19, utilising a best-of-three double-elimination format.