As I’m sure many of you are aware the Yaspresents 3v3 Tournament began yesterday.

The tournament format is relatively simple,  with 12 teams battling in 2 groups for 4 spots into the final leg of the tournament, and 6 teams invited. With an impressive $16,000 prize pool, taking place online on Blizzard’s EU Arena Tournament Realm, it has attracted US players as well as EU ones, big names and smaller ones.

The qualifying brackets are as follows:

Group A

Nuevos no somos eh: Blukstack/Methodx/Akane (Warlock/Paladin/Warrior)
Fanclub Zeyns: Enteyjin/Astaraya/Summi (Death Knight/Druid/Paladin)
Kurts Crew: Exerion/Hexur/Evleh (Druid/Shaman/Priest)
Toxic Youth: Boetar/Swapxy/Linkx (Warrior/Shaman/Paladin)
Shes Asian: Redx/Oldogstyle/Trollsweed (Shaman/Warrior/Priest)
Shoulda rerolled Warrior: Samx/Khryl/Vilefic (Rogue/Priest/Shaman)

Group B

Xero Practice: Salv/Ruddy/Forteh (Druid/Hunter/Paladin)
Alors la: Emelys/Shivz /Drat (Druid/Shaman/Priest)
Honor Capped: Colard/Saffie/Teebow (Warrior/Warlock/Shaman)
Prestige Gaming: Fritterus/Anberlin/Kekepopa (Druid/Shaman/Warrior)
Rat League Queuers: Shouri/Nadagast/Hoodrych (Druid/Warlock/Warrior)
Toaster Toasting Toasts:Yipz/Dakkroth/Chromix (Druid/Shaman/Priest)

The invited teams, that skip the qualifying are:

Last Again: Venruki/Sodah/Talbadar (Mage/Druid/Priest)
The Time is Now: Jahmilli/Starship/Zaddo (Mage/Druid/Priest)
TSG: Veev/Talason/Zilea (Warrior/Druid/Paladin)
Knew you were trouble: Cdew/Kurum/Corje (Shaman/Hunter/Warrior)
Comprendre L’Empire: Flubbah/Cara/Skoe (Shaman/Warrior/Priest)
Yas Reality Check: Shawir/Another/Geru (Warrior/Death Knight/Paladin)
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Many of you will already know who Conradical is, if you don’t know him by name you’ll most likely have seen his face or heard his voice. He’s a multi-rank 1 US player who has commentated a few events, most notably the recent regionals. As World of Warcraft seems to be creeping back towards the tournament scene, casters will more and more become the face and voice of the community if WoW is to ever really progress into an e-Sport, and I think it’s a good idea to have everyone introduced to their possible new face/voice! He was kind enough to give me some time to talk with him after a few technical issues with skype and recording, and a brief discussion about the origin of my accent (I’m Scottish, but I don’t sound that Scottish, but I kinda do, apparently) the interview commenced, and I’ve written out the transcript for you all to learn a bit more about our WoW-caster.

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Over the course of the year strongest European and North American teams have been participating in offline events, fighting for fame, cash, and Challenger Circuit points. Eight teams from each regional with most points have then been invited to Regional Finals, however it wasn’t a share of a $300,000 prize pool they came for – the teams fought to prove their worthy to qualify for Season 2 World Championship with the largest prize pool in esports history of 2 million dollars, as well as to become the first professional teams to start receiving salary from the game developer company itself. Needless to say, the teams clashed with unseen intensity.

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The Lack of Content and Goodbye

Ceon Here.

Firstly, apologies for the lack of WoW content over the past two months. This isn’t one of those ‘I was too busy to write’ scenarios. Indeed, there’s several posts sitting on my desktop from ‘Mists of Pandaria: The Good, the Bad and the Goodbye’—currently and, most likely, permanently 12 pages of notes—, ‘ The “Death” of WoW: MoP, Guild Wars 2 and the Future for Blizzard’—a near complete post requiring just a short section and a conclusion to be completed—and, finally, an attempt at some bare bones news coverage of the recent EU regional tournament. The latter mention there been a tournament with paint-drying-eye-gouge-inspiring double Shaman action, which I can only say I’m glad to have missed. I also had plenty of ideas for future content with one certain idea, ‘What Cataclysm Got Right’, been a particular favourite to think through.

Unfortunately, I just no longer have any passion left to write about World of Warcraft. I haven’t played the game since around February and haven’t really been motivated to return for Mists of Pandaria. However, don’t take that as a knock, the forthcoming expansion has plenty of PvP potential from real choice orientated talent design, resilience and the potential eradication of PvE gear, a slick and balanced new arena in the form of Tol’vir, two new BG concepts and another to follow, an aim to bring back World PvP to poker-esque strategy with the ability to  see your opponents class and specs (but not talents and glyphs) in the staging area.

Once again apologies for the lack of content. It’s highly doubtful I’ll ever post about World of Warcraft again. In hindsight I should have tried to recruit new writers a few months back when I felt myself waning in regards to World of Warcraft. It left Hydramist, a site I’ve long been a massive fan of, looking bare and let the sites fans down.

This then is where I’ll partially bow out and attempt to recruit a new set of bloggers to cover World of Warcraft and, hopefully, revitalise this blog.

With 75 posts (including this one) since September last year, it’s been an amazing ride. Thanks to everyone for reading my content and I hope you enjoyed it all. It’s been extremely awesome covering WoW here on Hydramist and I’d like to thank Hydra and syeren for giving me the opportunity and allowing me to act as editor-in-chief. I’d also like to thank the rest of the writers we’ve managed to recruit, they’ve been amazing to work with. I’ll still probably be around in the background and, hopefully, cover some other gaming topics from time to time, but for now it’s goodbye.

Recruiting WoW Bloggers

Hydramist is looking for passionate and knowledgeable World of Warcraft players interested in becoming official Hydramist bloggers. We’re looking for motivated individuals to provide new and exciting World of Warcraft PvP content covering a range of issues. While it’ll be down to each writer to select the issues they wish to write about, the ability to provide the latest e-sports news, game play analysis, the latest information from Mists of Pandaria and in-depth analysis of the latest patch notes will be a major plus. It’s not necessary to be a top tier player, but the ability to write about top tier play would be beneficial.

• There’s no minimum word requirement or strict weekly deadlines.
• One post a week, minimum. There’s no specific day required. You’ll have the freedom to post whenever you feel the most passionate and inspired.

If all that sounds a bit over the top and dramatic, don’t worry. Provided you have the passion and ability to write somewhat coherent sentences—unlike me—this is something any avid World of Warcraft PvP fan should consider.

To apply, email the following to ceon@hydramist.tv -

1. A short description of yourself.
2. The title of your first post with bullet points describing what will be covered. You can also write a full article if you wish.
3. Three ideas for future posts. Descriptive titles will suffice. For example, News coverage of the US regional, How WoW Arena will Change in Mists of Pandaria and A preview of the two new Battlegrounds in Mists of Pandaria.

I’ll be sorting through applications next week.

Two important League of Legends events were held during the last two weeks: the European Challenger Circuit: Poland, one of the first steps of the Season Two Championship; and MLG Summer Arena, where the legendary Korean team, Azubu Blaze, were for the first time to meet two American powerhouses – TSM and Curse. The outcome of these tournaments marked Season 2 front-runners.

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