Activision Blizzard are cutting cost and that is old news by now, but now it seems the Blizzard part of the company is injecting some money into World of Warcraft esports as they have announced $100.000 prize pools for PvP and PvE events.
Blizzard's announcement of two separate $100.000 prize pool tournaments is divided between PvP and PvE enthusiasts. Before talking about the bigger cash prizes, we need to rewind to the smaller events leading up to them, starting off with 3v3 Arena tournaments.
North America and Europe will have two seasons each, with six cups per season. Each of these cups will have $10.000 prize pools and teams will earn points, depending on how well they place in these smaller competitions. The four teams with the most points each season from both North America and Europe will compete for the $100.000 prize pool in the main tournament.
To top it off, the actual main event will be Arena World Championship finals which will include
- 1st place from NA and EU Season 1
- 1st and 2nd place from NA and EU Summer Finals
- Top point-earner from NA and top point-earner from EU
- Winners of the China, APAC, and Latin America finals.
Those who favour PvE will not be left out as Mythic Dungeon tournaments will no longer be invitational, but rather international. It will be split into two groups - MDI East, consisting of China, Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Australia/ Zealand. MDI East will have North America, Latin America and Europe in its group.
Anyone with a Blizzard.net account in good standing can join the Proving Grounds, which will be the entry point for the bigger PvE competitions. Players will need to run 14 Keystone Mythic dungeons between 26 February and 12 March 2018 in order to qualify, but the rules may change along the way.
Blizzard
Each cup during a season will have a $12.000 prize pool and there will be six cups in total, culminating in a LAN event at the end of a season, where the prize pool will be $100.000. New toys will be introduced to the in-game shop, and proceeds from purchasing these will go towards the prize pools, although the didn't specify yet whether this will mean bigger rewards for competitors or simply lower investments from Activision Blizzard.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth General Gallery
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