Friday 26 August will see the kick-off of Season Five of the World of Tanks ANZ Premier League. With a new team joining the league and roster changes this season’s looking to be extremely exciting.

Returning to safeguard their crown, are Season Four champions the North Sydney Sentinels, and their formidable finals competitor, the South Sydney Skorpions. Taking the place of the Brisbane Bulldogs is a new team, the Cairns Comets, who’ve made their way up the ladder from the ANZBL.

The first-ever player trade of the competition, Trax heads over to the Adelaide Action X, while Saxon joins the rebranded Christchurch Conquerors. The Melbourne Matildas and Penrith Panthers round out the six teams competing this season.

Kevin Zhu, World of Tanks ANZ Community Evangelist, says as the league gets bigger, the team use each new season to roll out significant changes and better ways to engage with the community.

“We’ve introduced changes to the Grand Finals format, created more variety with map selection, and Mines have been substituted this season for the Siegfried Line. The ever-popular Fantasy League is back and we’re added in a new weekly prize pool,” said Kevin.

Season Five’s Grand Finals will now feature a ‘best of 9’ format, which means teams who earn their right to play on stage, live from Fortress Melbourne, will need to take five victories and spread their diversity across the map.

To heat up the competitiveness further, a team can now no longer pick the same map as a tiebreaker for the week. This means if a tiebreaker occurs, it will always be on a new map. So, commanders will have to be more prepared this season since maps will be unknown until mere hours before the match.

The season starts with the roll-out of Update 1.18, which will include a new line of Italian tanks. New tactics are sure to be displayed with the arrival of six tanks, including the Tier X TD (the Minotauro) and the re-worked AMX M4 54.

Last but certainly not least, the mighty Fantasy League returns, where the best over the competition can take home the lion’s share of the prize. This season, a weekly prize pool has been added where the person who earns the most points in that specific week, earns a cool 500 gold.

The World of Tanks ANZ Premier League (ANZPL) is a 5v5 competitive World of Tanks mode, featuring state-based teams, a double round robin group stage, a grassroots league in the ANZBL, and an offline LAN final to determine the best team across Australia and New Zealand.

Season Five will commence on 26 August, with the finals culminating on 26 November, you can catch all the action on the official World of Tanks Twitch channel.