Mentioned in this article
- World of Warcraft esports will be moving to YouTube.
- The Mythic Dungeon Invitational will return in 2020 with a $300K USD prize pool.
- Eight teams will compete in the Arena World Championship (AWC) for a share of $500K in prize money during the last season of the Battle for Azeroth.
Blizzard has announced changes to both the Mythic Dungeon Invitational and Arena World Championship, World of Warcraft’s two officially-supported competitions. Both esport ecosystems will see format changes as well as changes to where each will play its respective championship.
Previously revamped structures for Overwatch and Hearthstone saw their annual championships moved away from BlizzCon in previous years. With StarCraft esports having been recently given over to ESL to operate, BlizzCon’s position as a finale for Blizzard Entertainment esports thus far has yet to be announced.
According to the announcement, Mythic Dungeon Invitational and Arena World Championship will be hosted on YouTube. This includes videos on demand (VOD) and other content.
The Mythic Dungeon Invitational (MDI) returns with a new dungeon challenge and some changes to the regional placing aspect of the league. Those changes are:
- The Europe and Asia (EU/Asia) division includes players from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Korea, China, and Taiwan.
- The Americas (AMER) division includes players from The Americas, Australia, and New Zealand.
- Teams will participate in the division based on where the majority of their team’s players reside.
The finals for this season’s MDI will be a LAN event that will see a $300K prize pool distributed among the teams.
The Arena World Championship’s (AWC) thirteenth year will see one final season to close out Battle for Azeroth, the game’s current expansion, as WoW transitions to its next major update, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.
Registration for the AWC’s online qualification cups will open up in the Spring. This season, all eight online Arena cups will award a $10K prize pool and AWC Points. Teams with the most AWC points after all four North American and European cups will be invited to compete in the AWC Battle for Azeroth Finals. Once there, the eight best teams in the world will compete for a share of the $500K prize pool—the largest AWC Prize Pool in history.
Lastly, the Arena World Championship will begin once World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has been released. A release date has not been set, but the expansion is expected in the latter half of 2020.
The first AWC Tournament Series in Shadowlands will host two competitive seasons with online cups and two in-person tournaments, including a mid-year LAN and a finals event which would occur in the Summer.
