Blizzard Reveals Plans For World of Warcraft Esports
Activision Blizzard has kicked off their 2021 schedule by announcing their plans for the World of Warcraft Arena World Championships (AWC). After a successful tenure in 2020, the developer have overcome the hurdles of working from home to create a circuit that will showcase the best talent that WoW has to offer in both the PvP and PvE modes.
Revealing the plans, Associate Product Manager David Hollings stated "This team just makes anything possible and they've stepped up so many ways that I could never have imagined".
The format will now be split into to seasons with a total prize pool of $900,000 throughout the year, a third of which will be up for grabs in the Season 2 Grand Finals.
Click to enlargeSeason 1
The roadmap includes teams and players from Europe and North America, who can sign up for the qualifying cups through Gamebattles. The top eight sides within the Cups will then qualify for the Season 1 Regional Circuit. With four weeks of round robin tournaments and a $160,000 prize pool, the top four teams from each region will then earn a spot in the Season 1 finals.
Season 2
After the Season 1 champions are crowned, celebrations will be cut somewhat short, and hangovers will be limited as Season 2 will be around the corner. With no qualifiers this time around, the top six sides from Season 1 in each region will be invited to automatically qualify, whilst the other two spots will be deciphered through a promotion playoff which consists of the bottom two teams and teams entering through the open invitation.
With the eight teams in each region decided, the format will then mimic Season 1, with the Grand Finals boasting $300,000 and the chance to be crowned Arena World Championship: Shadowlands 2021 Grand Final winners.
The AWC is due to kick off with the Open Cups in January.
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Images via Activision Blizzard