Update September 16, 2017: The next phase of the Mythic Dungeon Invitational has begun, with 32 teams across 4 regions competing for a hefty prize pot.
Speedrunning fever grips Azeroth once more as World of Warcraft’s $100,000 dungeon-clearing tournament springs back into action this weekend, with the China and Asia-pacific matches resolving this weekend, Europe & Americas next weekend (September 23rd), and the finals scheduled for September 30th.
What’s the latest news in Azeroth? Check out our World of Warcraft patch 7.3 notes.
The event is live now, and being streamed on the official Warcraft Twitch channel, with the match between Chinese teams MMT and World Peace airing at the time of writing. It’s a close-fought battle, the match currently standing at 1:1, MMT having just taken the last round in spite of several penalties from deaths.
Update August 10, 2017:The first phase of the Mythic Dungeon Invitational is about to close.
World of Warcraft’s $100,000 dungeon-clearing tournament is about to finish its first phase, with the deadline for new entries tomorrow.
Here are the results, courtesy of Raider.io. As you can see, seven of the worldwide top ten teams are from Europe, with two from the Americas and one from Asia-Pacific, which makes a bit of a change in demographic from what we usually see in high-end esports. Blizzard will choose the eight top-scoring teams on a regional basis (see original story, below), soWowhead havepresented Raider’s data accordingly.
If you’ve been competing, you’ve got until 15:00 Pacific time tomorrow to submit your information to Blizzard via this form. When the deadline is up and the final pool of 32 teams decided, the next phase kicks off in September.
Original story July 14, 2017:World of Warcraft’s PvP mode is an esport, technically, though it’s much smaller than CS:GO, Dota 2, or League of Legends. Unusually, a competitive scene has evolved on its PvE side, with top guilds competing for the quickest raid clears. Blizzard have been slow to embrace that side of things, but a recent announcement suggests a change of course.
Presenting the Mythic Dungeon Invitational: a PvE tournament to clear not raids, but dungeons (obviously), with shares in a $100,000 prize pool up for grabs.
Starting on July 25, potential entrants will compete in a two-week ‘proving grounds’ period in which they’ll aim to post the best scores while clearing Mythic Keystone dungeons. When the two weeks are up, the eight top-scoring teams from the Americas, Europe, China, and Asia-Pacific will advance to the final pool of 32.
The final showdown will then take place one day in September, in which the qualifying teams will face a series of elimination rounds to determine the eventual winners, all of it broadcast on the Warcraft Twitch channel.
It’s interesting to see Blizzard embracing competitive PvE in Warcraft, when the raid race is so gruelling for little reward other than bragging rights. One wonders if events like the Mythic Dungeon Invitational will presage more official support for competitive raiding.
Here’s the announcement on the World of Warcraft site. If you’d like to get involved, keep an eye on the WoW esports sitefor more details, coming soon. Very best of luck!