World of Warcraft announced that there are going to be changes to the 2020 Arena World of Championship Battle for Azeroth. For one, the entire season is now going to be held purely online. The initial plan was to have the season culminate in a multi-region LAN tournament.
Blizzard did admit that by having the entire tournament online, it’s going to be difficult to host mainly due to the differences when it comes to regional server ping. However, to make sure that the online events continue to be enjoyable, there are going to be format changes. This is also to ensure that there is enough PvP action while maintaining the competitive integrity of the tournament.
For the format, the AWC Battle for Azeroth season is going to have three major stages. The first is the AWC Cups. These are composed of eight open-registration online tournaments, four in North America and the other four in Europe. The prize pool of each tournament is pegged at $10,000 each. Beginning May 22 and until June 14, teams are going to fight for AWC points, with the top eight teams of each region being invited to the AWC Circuit.
For the AWC Circuit, the top eight of each region get to compete in a round-robin tournament. There is going to be a guaranteed prize for qualifying, and even simply participating, though Blizzard did not disclose the actual amounts. During this tournament, each team plays against every other team once in a best-of-five series with the winning team getting one point. All matches are going to be played over four weekends with the actual schedule to be revealed at a later date.
Then there are the Finals. In this tournament, the top four teams of each region are seeded into two double-eliminated groups. They then fight through the final weekend of the season. Only two teams come out on top, each in their respective region. The top teams are then awarded the title of regional champions of Battle for Azeroth and get a large share of the prize pool.
The prize pool for the original finals was supposed to be $500,000. However the prize pool is now going to be $250,000 per region and divided as follows:
- $150,000 for the NA Circuit
- $100,000 for the NA Finals
- $150,000 for the EU Circuits
- $100,000 for the EU Finals
So what do you think about these changes? Will you tune in to watch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
