Riot Games has announced the sunsetting of Challengers Oceania in 2026, and significant changes leading up to the new Pacific Path to Champions.

As announced earlier in October, the Pacific Path to Champions was introduced as the new pathway for Challengers and Tier 2 level teams to fight for a spot at the Pacific Stage 2 Playoffs and a chance to qualify all the way to Champions. While Pacific will allocate four slots for Challengers teams, Oceania was not guaranteed one; instead the top team from Oceania will compete in a Last Chance Qualifier against the top team from South Asia and the 2nd and 3rd seed from Southeast Asia.

E-KING at Ascension Pacific 2025. From EXO Clan to E-KING, Oceania's history is nothing but storied. (Photo by VCT Pacific/Riot Games)

The region has seen its fair share of changes and turbulence during its competitive existence, since the inception of First Strike Oceania in 2020, won by EXO Clan EXO Clan Inactive Crunchy Ethan Laker dizzyLife Kyran Crombie iyen Iyengaran Raju pl1xx Christopher Li Bob Bob Tran (which later became Soniqs Soniqs Inactive ), and following after with the Valorant Oceania Tour in 2021 and 2022, which fed teams to both the North America LCQ and APAC LCQ the following year.

The decision to sunset Challengers in the region, as explained by Riot, were mostly in part due to a lack of growth within the local ecosystem and an imbalance between the demand of operating the tournament and the interest from the viewership and the players participating. Riot also has expressed plans to increase support for future grassroots and community events, as well as maintaining that Game Changers Oceania will continue to run in 2026.

Pacific Path-to-Pro diagram. (Image by Riot Games)

However, Riot pressed that Oceania teams will continue its competitive structure through the existing Path to Pro and Premier tournament system, where top teams from each 2026 Premier Acts will feed into an Oceania regional qualifier which will send a team to the aforementioned Last Chance Qualifier. In addition, the top teams from the last 3 Acts of 2025 are directly invited into the Invite Division for V26A1 where they will compete against other Premier teams for points.