ESEA Premier Season 23 for the Oceanic region has come to an end, with [t,5680,au,9105,9109,10586,10587,10588] defeating [t,4791,au,624,8746,9636,9686,627] 2-0 (16-11 de_cache, 16-7 de_nuke) in the Grand final, becoming the first team to qualify for the Mountain Dew League Global Challenge LAN Finals.

The eight team single-elimination playoffs finished earlier than expected, as three of the quarter-final matches were forfeited by AVANT, SYF and Incept, due to roster issues. This gave Athletico, Chiefs and Immunity free access to the semi-finals. The last quarter-final match was played between Exile5 and the Aussie-Kiwi Parallax team, which went in the way of Exile5 2-1 who managed to scoop the last two maps 16-14 narrowly.

On one side of the bracket, Athletico was pit against last season's winner Chiefs, who defeated them in the semi-final 2-1 under the ASDF name at the time. History did not repeat itself, as Athletico overcame Michael "⁠Lightstep⁠" Hall's side 2-0 convincingly, despite a close second map.



Athletico continue their reign of success without their favourite Mongolian, erkaSt

Switching over to the other semi-final, it went to all three maps with Exile5 taking Mirage 16-14 in the first map. Immunity stole the next map on Cobblestone in an overtime win, as Nikhil "⁠NikkeZ⁠" Victor's crew struggled to close the series 2-0 early when they had the lead. The showdown between the two was decided on Train, which progressed to quintuple overtime. James "⁠James⁠" Quinn' side survived the battle of endurance in the end with a 31-28 win, clinching the match 2-1.

With Connor "⁠chuch⁠" Morgan returning to the active line-up instead of the three month substitute in the form of Erdenetsogt "⁠erkaSt⁠" Gantulga, Athletico claimed another overseas trip, as they succeeded Immunity in the grand final with two straight maps.

ESEA Premier Season 23 final standings: 1. Athletico - MDL Global Challenge LAN spot

2. Immunity - $1,750

3-4. Chiefs - $1,125

3-4. Exile5 - $1,125

5-8. AVANT - $250

5-8. SYF - $250

5-8. Parallax - $250

5-8. Incept - $250

After attending several LAN finals in Asia, this will be the first time Athletico will compete at an international event in the North American region. With this result, we are still far away from determining the following participants for the main event: