Stormscale PvP Guild Yaspresents are hosting an online World of Warcraft Tournament over the next three days. Featuring names such as Snutz, Dakkroth, Glyptic, Talbadar, Khuna and, the main man himself, Hydra—the line-up features some of the best WoW players from both the EU and US. With these players and a much more—highly welcomed in my opinion—mixture of comps, this tournament is shaking up to be a brilliant showdown between these great teams.

The tournament will feature eight teams who will be split into two groups of four for the initial stage. While splitting the teams into two groups will prevent us from seeing certain matchups, this stage of the tournament is still round robin so we’ll see a good variety of matchups. This structure also benefits the second, double elimination, stage of the tournament where the top two teams from each group will advance to juke it out for the $4200 prize for first, $2100 for second and $600 for third place.

It will be played on the EU Arena Pass allowing players to min max their characters for each match up. The absence of 4.3 PvE gear is certainly a plus to boot. They’ve also paid close attention to previous tournaments, banning class stacking and saving us the insomnia curing feat of another monstrosity of double Shaman Warlock as seen at the recent Prestige Gaming and GameSense tournamenta while back. The necessity for a healer on each team is also a great step in the right direction. Finally, with Another been a tournament organiser and learning all too well of the perils of a certain map at BlizzCon last year—we should all be cheering at the fact Ring of Valor is banned from the map pool.

The action will kick off tomorrow at 19:00 CET and at the same time Saturday and Sunday. For those worried about missing the action, Hydramist will be posting the stream on our homepage and telling you when the action kick offs via Facebook and Twitter.

The full list of teams and tournament details with pretty formatting follows:

Tournament structure:

Eight invited teams will play in two groups of four teams each. Group phase will be played in round robin format. Top two teams from each group advance to the double elimination phase.

The group phase and semi finals will be a best-of-five. The Grand Finals will be played best-of-seven.

GROUP A (May 11th, 7:00-11:30pm CET):

Survival Tactics: Shawir (Warrior), Braindeadly (Hunter), Flubbah (Shaman)

Vanguards Cleave: Vanguards (Paladin), Mes (Death Knight), Sodah (Priest)

IntroDucing: Taku (Rogue), Dakkroth (Warlock), Glyptic (Shaman)

Baylyfe: Salv (Druid), Dicegg (Hunter), Hydra (Priest)

GROUP B (May 12th, 7:00-11:30pm CET):

Bleached Bones: Mir (Rogue), Skenz (Warlock), Geru (Shaman)

Yas Suprise Effect: Khuna (Rogue), Xandyn (Mage), Zunniyaki (Priest)

Tag Team Stomp: Talbadar (Priest), Snutz (Warlock), Cdew (Shaman)

Multivites: Abni (Mage), Maldiva (Warlock), Karvinen (Paladin)

Prizes

• First place – 4200$
• Second place – 2100$
• Third place – 600$

Tournament Rules:

• Any setup with one healer is allowed.
• No class stacking.
• The Tournament is played on TR. Any gear that is available on TR is allowed.
• Teams can change their setup and spec in between each game.
• The losing team of each match will be able to choose a map that has not already been played. Nagrand Arena will always be played first. In a best of 7 series a map cannot be played twice until all others have been chosen. Ring of Valor is banned.
• 45 second disconnect rule: If a player disconnects after 45 second mark the game will not be replayed.

The event got started with a back and forth between Team Roccat (R/D/P) and Skill Capped (MLP). Roccat, going against the grain for a Taiwan team, was actually able to put out some decent pressure onto Skill Capped. Indeed, they had some amazing switches in game one, forcing an early bubble out of Toez. However, the CC capabilities of Skill Capped and Roccats tendency to tunnel Pookz in game two saw them lose the series. It was still a fantastic start to the evening and gave just a glimpse at what this event had to offer.

After a short delay and switch up in the next match to be played on stage, Team EG (Shadow Play)—one of the favourites to win in our poll—made their first appearance. They met Anarchy Roc (WLS), the second team from Taiwan, who, unlike their counterparts, lived up to the kill fodder stereotype. Team EG won the series with ease.

The other favourite in our poll, Showtime or Yas Presents (Shadow Cleave), were up next. They too went up against the Taiwan WLS. With the vulnerability of DKs to melee, the WLS were probably right to focus Another. However, their inability to switch it up and control Fabio really cost them. It’s highly doubtful Yas Presents broke out in a sweat picking up the victory here.

Next up we saw one of the most anticipated games in the form of Yas Presents vs. Skill Capped (MLS). This was the most exciting matchup so far with a lot of back and forth action. Both teams were able to pressure one another and set up potential kill opportunities. Indeed, it was next to impossible to call a winner in most of their games. In fact, the only game that looked one sided was game number three on Ring of Valor.  Yas Presents gained so much momentum, forcing block, NS and Spirit Link early on. Unfortunately, the server went down and the game had to be replayed.  The replay was very much a back and forth between the two teams. Skill Capped were able to catch Glyptic into a CC chain as they focused their efforts on a cooldown-less Another for the win and the series.

The tournament momentum didn’t stop there though with Yas Presents coming back once again against Team EG. This was arguably the most anticipated matchup of the tournament with both teams been favourites to take home the $75,000 prize. Team EG were under constant pressure in game one and weren’t able to put out any of their own. Yas Presents took the game and very much looked like the dominant side. However, the phenomenal players of Team EG fought back in round two, scoring a kill on Glyptic with a spell lock, death coil and fear combo. Game three saw Yas Presents make a surprise switch on to Azael with a Strangulate on Cdew. Weirdly, Cdew did have both his trinket up and Fear Ward at this point, but didn’t trinket the Strangulate. There may have been some communication error here, but regardless Yas Presents took the series.

DNAW Trio (MLS) were up next against the Korean team of Kimchi Man (RLS). This series really gave us a hint that the Korean teams weren’t just a push over this year and, even without their famous RMP, they can still pack a punch. It was essentially neck and neck between the two teams in game one before a DC caused a premature end to proceedings. Game two was more of the game was some very close calls on Drudenhaus from the RLS. DNAW showed just how strong MLS burst was though with a kill, ala season 8, onto the Rogue. The last game took place on Blades Edge Arena where Kimchi Mans Rogue looked vulnerable throughout. The insane pressure of MLS reared its ugly head time and time again until they caught the Rogue with no cooldowns and his Shaman with a CS for the win.

DNAW, getting back to back Korean teams, were back on stage for the next matchup against OMG (PHD). By this point in the tournament, OMG were already showing signs of how formidable they would be with a victory against Team EG backstage. While DNAW were able to score a kill on OMGs DK in round two, they too seemed unprepared for the PHD, losing the series 2-1. This put OMG in second position just below Skill Capped as day one came to an end.

We entered day two and the stream once again started on schedule. We started out with a repeat of the EU Regional final with DNAW going up against Showtime (Yas Presents). While the MLS were able to pick up a win in game one, Yas Presents fought back in the next two games and took the series. It was another equally matched game though, with both teams having opportunities to steal the victory.

In yet another repeat of a final, Team EG went up against Skill Capped. After Team EG took their last series 6-0 at the US Invitational, they were certainly the favourites going into this. Skill Capped struggled to keep up with the DoT pressure in game one, eventually keeling over. While Skill Capped put in a better performance in game two, Team EG soon gained the momentum and scored a kill on Snutz taking the series.

Next up we had Team EG vs. DNAW to decide who would go into the single elimination round. With their string of victories against MLS, this game looked like Team EGs on paper.  However, the common adage about different regional play styles really came into fruition here. DNAW took games one and three, with Dakkroth porting out of LoS of his healer and dying to DoT damage in game two. It was an exciting series and Team EG came close to taking it from time to time, but, unfortunately for them, they were knocked out of the tournament.

At this point we had OMG, Yas Presents, Skill Capped and DNAW ready to duke it out in the single elimination round. First up was Skill Capped vs. DNAW. Unfortunately, their first series was not streamed. We can assume DNAW won though due to only having two defeats in the round robin phase which were against OMG and Yas Presents. We moved onto a best of five in this round and went right up to round 5 to decide the winner. While the series wasn’t as exciting as some of the previous matchups, the suspense of who would make it to the final was very much present. The fifth game was the first and only to hit the 15 minute mark and see the 25% healing debuff come into play. A few seconds before the end, the health pools looked like this:

It weas intense to say the last, but with no CC on Toez and CS going out on to Drudenhaus, DNAWs fate was sealed.

The last semi-final saw Yas Presents go up against, the dark horse of the tournament, OMG. While OMG were able to put out some serious pressure at the start of game one with a near kill on Fabio, that pressure soon faded as their cooldowns ended. Yas Presents were then able to take the lead and pick up a win with a kill on OMGs DK. Game two saw Yes Presents play very defensively, throwing some immediate control onto OMG. Yes Presents were then able to keep up the pressure and yet again score a kill on OMGs DK who received a BoP that did very little to help.

The tide started to change in game 3 when Ring of Valor popped up. OMG were just able to put out some insane pressure and eventually score a kill on Glyptic. Another made the play of the tournament in this match though, managing to predict and copy Divine Shield just as he was under some intense pressure. And the return of Ring of Valor in game 5 might as well have been the killing blow. There seemed to some sort of miscommunication in the next match up, with Another dropping dead as Glyptic was caught into a Strangulate and Scatter with his trinket still up. Finally, we had the deciding game and the return of Ring of Valor in might as well have been the killing blow. The PHD took the game and advanced to the final.

OMG gained the momentum, taking the first two games and, with the frustration getting the better of Snutz, OMG looked like the victors going into the third. However, Reckful came up to the stage and had a word with Snutz. To be honest, it’s quite bizarre why that’s even allowed. While it’s likely Rekful just gave him a pep talk, it seems stupid that there’s no rule against communicating with other pros that might be able to provide better strategy advice. Regardless, whatever Reckful said to Snutz seemed to work. Skill Capped made a solid comeback, taking the next two games. We then entered the final game of the tournament. This took place on Dalaran Sewers.  OMGs Paladin had some unique positioning and held out with bubble until he absolutely needed it. This allowed him to keep his team up, while Pookz got far too offensive and dropped dead. It was a fantastic series and one of the best finals we’ve ever seen at BlizzCon.

Everyone, including the players themselves, underestimated the Korean PHD. The lack of practice against the comp was really evident. While a different map selection in the OMG vs. Yas Presents matchup might have given us a very different final, OMGs victory cannot be put down to sheer luck. They played extremely well throughout the tournament and gave the competitors a lesson for the future: practice against every comp or they might just turn round and kick your arse!

Finally, after last year’s BlizzCon was filled to the brim with insomnia-curing games and a controversial final, it was fantastic to see that, even with a tournament filled with Shaman and Warlocks, WoW arena can still be as intensely exciting and nail biting to witness as it once was. Hopefully Blizzard will place more focus on arena in the future and we’ll once again have a vast array of tournaments rather than BlizzCon alone.

For those that missed the Grand Finals, you can relive the drama again beneath.

Update:

DNAW came third:

What a terrible image!

Thanks to Jouni in the comments for the info.

1. Stream just 3 of 14 Games:

While it’s ridiculous to expect every game streamed, only streaming 3 games out of a possible 14 is underwhelming to say the least. This is what occurred at the EU Regional’s and, in fact, Blizzard didn’t even think to record the other games for later viewing. Indeed, even without commentating, recording them would still have been better than doing nothing.

It’s understandable they wanted to Stream as much SC2 as possible, but would providing two streams really have been too much to ask of a billion dollar company?

Amusingly the sound dropped out of sync as soon as SC2 went off air and WoW came on. The sounds guy must have gone home at this point.

It wasn’t as if this was entirely down to “technical difficulties” either. The original schedule only had 4 of the 14 games scheduled to be on stream. In fact, it wasn’t like there wasn’t a demand for WoW either. They’re Facebook page had requests every 5 seconds for WoW to be put on stream.

Ok with most teams consisting of Shaman/Warlock/X there was never going to be that much of a difference between games, but still there were teams like Khuna’s RMP and Hydra and Inflame teaming up to form, the best named team ever, Colgate. In fact, without any practice, Colgate was one of only two teams to take an arena game off the dominant Showtime. It would have been interesting to see. Fortunately though we did get this nifty catchphrase from Inflame:

Full interview

2. Under no circumstances, whatsoever, update the brackets and announce any problems. Instead stick to the murder mystery theme for added enjoyment and have your viewers search the web for answers:

At the EU Regional’s Blizzard didn’t deem it necessary to update those pesky brackets until 4-6 hours after the games had occurred! It was also deemed too much of a hassle to use one of the many breaks between SC2 games, to update us on how the WoW tournament was going. Writing a blog post to update us on the delay and how the tournament was going? That was too much of a burden as well.

3. Promise high quality WoW VoDs in a few weeks time only to release the same high quality SC2 VoDs right after the event:

Unfortunately, Blizzard decided not to stream the US Invitational because certain technical difficulties such as the game not been installed can occur. Instead they told us the event wasn’t an afterthought and they’d be releasing high quality VoDs shortly that we’ll really appreciate. Two weeks later Blizzard finally released these VoDs. The quality was good and the sound was in sync to boot! However, claiming they put so much effort into these wasn’t quite believable especially they released high quality SC2 VoDs while the SC2 Invitational was still ongoing.

Not an Afterthought…who were they trying to kid?

4. Hire someone without the slightest bit of knowledge of WoW Arena to cast the event:

The EU event had arguably the worst tournament caster ever seen. Blizzard employed Soe Gschwind to cast this event—an avid fan of toothpaste who knows next to nothing about arena.

When your commentator has to ask whether Shaman A has used hex or wonder with bemusement why everyone on team B have changing health pools while spirit link is clearly down, you’ve clearly hired the wrong person. While she provided some eye candy, her poor camera work and failure to set up the spectator UI made the event an unintended hilarity to watch.

This was actually one of the most bizarre oversights. It made no sense why Blizzard would hire her.

With sights like this:

Let’s hope Blizzard never employ her again.

All of the World of Warcraft action will be brought to you by Luke “Virulence” Bodenheimer, Jared “Vhell” Coulston, and Soe Gschwind.

Ohh fuck!

5. Don’t have the Game Installed:

You’d think this would be one of the most critical aspects of a tournament and at the top of any organizers priority list. However, at the EU event, Blizzard thought it’d be a good idea to update the game to Cataclysm as the tournament was about to get underway.

There are technical errors and then there’s the outright stupidity of not having the game fully installed prior to the event! Need I say more?

Let’s hope BlizzCon runs smoothly and Blizzard learnt some valuable lessons from these two events.

1. Hello Azael, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. For the very few people unfamiliar with you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hey everyone, my name is Isaac ‘Azael’ Cummings-Bentley and I’ve been a Pro Gamer with Team EG for nearly 4 years now.  I play Warlock and have won events such as MLG, IEM Global Finals 2010 and Blizzard NA Invitational 2011.

2. After missing out on BlizzCon by a whisker in 2009 against TSG—who incidentally went on to win the tournament—this will be the first time you’ve played at BlizzCon. Are you excited going into the event and how would a victory on this stage compare to your victory at the IEM Global Championship?

Yeah, losing like that was definitely frustrating as we had some pretty rotten luck I felt and came soooo close to getting to Blizzcon we felt we would’ve done well at the event so seeing the team who edged us out win it all kind of stung a bit.  I’m excited going to play at Blizzcon but I’ve been a number of times before working for sponsors and commentating last year and so on, so I feel like I know what to expect.  As far as how winning would compare I’m not really sure I’d have to actually do it to know but just based on the money alone it would be pretty amazing to win Blizzcon

3. Team EG had a really strong showing at the US Invitational, you guys only lost one series against Slip n Slide (Skill Capped) and well and truly made up for that in the final, beating them 6-0. Do you think you’ll be able to continue this dominance at BlizzCon?

You never know how things will work out at a tournament, but I feel as though we’re the most prepared team and if we play to the best of our abilities I don’t think there’s anyone we can’t beat.  I won’t say that we’ll dominate Blizzcon but I will say that I can’t imagine a world in which I felt more confident about our chances, so we definitely have a great shot and at this point I feel like anything other than winning would probably be considered a disappointment.

4. With Blizzards decision not to reset MMR and the ladder, there’s been a distinct lack of queues, has that impacted on your ability to practice and how much practice would you say you’ve had as team since the US Invitational?

We all have access to numerous characters and I have upwards of 5 Warlocks given to me by various people so honestly it wasn’t that hard to queue on ladder when we felt like it, but at the same time with the differences in gear I really didn’t feel that playing ladder is even worthwhile.  Instead we focused our efforts on War Gaming top teams on the Tournament Realm so it’s the same gear set and much better / focused practice as you can try out different things and let teams know what you would like them to try etc.

5. Hydramist recently set up a poll asking our readers who they will take the BlizzCon crown this year. With over 2000 votes so far, it’s been neck and neck between Showtime (Yaspresents) and Team EG. Do you see Showtime (Yaspresents) as your biggest rivals and do you see their Shadow Cleave as a potential issue?

Showtime is a fantastic group of players running a setup which can definitely be very tough for ours so they’re probably our biggest rivals as far as that goes but we have also prepared extensively against it and I really do like our chances.  We know that preparing against a specific setup does not always prepare you for a different group of players running the same thing but I feel that works both ways as although there may not be a Shadowcleave as strong as Showtime there’s also no one they can practice against to prepare for us.

6. Further to this, what are your thoughts on the line-up of teams going into BlizzCon? Are you worried about facing any team in particular?

We’re not going to be taking anyone lightly, I feel like all the NA, EU and probably KR teams have the capability to take games off of any team there so we really just want to focus on minimizing our mistakes and playing consistent and careful so that we don’t drop any bad games.  I feel that if we just play our best and don’t take any needless risks we should be fine against all teams as I think we can out play teams over the course of a series as long as we’re not giving up any easy wins.

7. With seven out of ten teams containing both a Warlock and a Shaman, some would say both classes are overrepresented at this event. What’s your view on this and the synergy between Warlocks and Shamans in general? Do you regard either class as overpowered in any way?

Yep, they’re both overrepresented at the event.  Ever since Shamans got a magic dispel they became amazing when paired with Warlocks, because although there was synergy between the two last expansion you had to rely heavily on Devour Magic RNG which was pretty awful at times so now it’s much more consistent.  As far as strength of the classes in the gear set in which the tournament is taking place I would definitely say without a question Shamans are the best healer because of their strong utility and the strength of passive healing through Earth Shield / Healing Stream etc while interrupted or CCed.  Warlocks have great survivability when played correctly and with good portal usage and extremely strong consistent damage which makes them the DPS class of choice for most setups.  I do however feel that when playing on live servers with the new gear set things have changed a lot simply because damage has gotten so insanely high that classes with higher burst potential have taken over quite a bit and so Paladins who have great survivability and Priests who synergize well with high pressure comps have begun to raise drastically in popularity while Shamans seem a lot weaker than they were before and Warlocks are much less common.  In the past few hundred games on ladder maybe 5% of my games at most have been against Shaman / Lock teams while a solid 80% or higher contain a Mage or a Feral.

8. The first round of the event will be a Round Robin, do you prefer this format? Also since every possible match up will take place in this round, do you think we’ll see more comp switches in the single elimination round as the teams will have a better feel for each other?

I don’t really prefer it as we lose any advantage we had from a high seed and I feel as though teams won’t be prepared for how much damage we deal and how we play so having to play every team once before getting to the single elimination phase may give people a chance to adapt / get used to how we play.  That said I have to admit that Round Robin is the most fair way to do it and the best 4 teams should get out of the group stage which is really how it should be.  As for changing setups, I don’t think we’ll see that because you have to lock in one setup for the entire series so if you try some counter comp or w/e and it doesn’t work out you’re stuck with it and are probably screwed.  I think it’s best to just stick with the setup you’re best at unless you’re extremely desperate in this rule set.

9. This year Blizzard have implemented a stacking healing debuff that will kick in at the 15 minute mark. Do you see this having any negative effects and could it potentially benefit one comp more than another?

It does seem kind of like a bad idea to me and honestly I’d rather just see the games end at the 15 minute mark, because I feel like it gives a massive advantage to certain teams such as the RLS and Shadowcleave.  Our setup against RLS it’s extremely easy to turtle it out for the RLS and basically with the Rogue spamming gouge, and using all CDs defensively it’s extremely hard for us to get enough damage out for a kill but with the healing debuff up it’d be insanely hard for us to heal through their damage even without them playing aggressively.  As for Shadowcleave it’s a simple matter of DKs being able to basically solo healers even without help from their Warlock because of a huge amount of interrupts and Necrotic Strike so I just feel like it might be impossible to heal through their damage with the added healing debuff on top of Necroctic Strike simply because I feel like an ability that absorbs healing when heals are drastically reduced becomes extremely overpowered.

10. Woundman and Reckful, two staples of the WoW arena scene for some time and, in fact, two of your former RLS partners, recently quit the game.  What are your thoughts on this and do you think the current direction of PvP had any influence on their decision to quit?

In all honesty the game on live servers really isn’t very much fun at the moment because damage is simply too high and all the issues with queues because of the MMR system etc but I don’t think that really had anything to do with them quitting.  For all the tournament players the fact that there was only one tournament this year is pretty awful, with MLG not having WoW because the spectator client wasn’t ready, and IEM dropping the game it was a really slow / boring year and many people were evaluating if it was worth the time they were putting in to try to stay competitive.  When both of them missed out on Blizzcon I just feel like they didn’t see any reason to continue playing anymore with live servers not being fun, and no tournaments on the horizon to prepare for it just was a good time to quit, and many other pros / top players seem to be doing the same thing.  If there aren’t fixes to make playing on ladder enjoyable again or more tournaments added I think you can expect the rest of the remaining pros to quit pretty soon.

11. Arena has been in decline as an e-sport with only Blizzard holding tournaments this year. What changes could Blizzard make to improve the viability of arena to make it as an e-sport?

This topic has pretty much been beaten to death so I don’t really want to kick a dead horse, but basically they simply need to make it more of a priority.  Promote the game to get it back into tournaments, make more pvp oriented balance changes, have a competitive gear set / patch that’re meant for tournaments, etc.  If the game is in tournaments and actually has good shout casting / spectating and is promoted well and on time without massive delays etc etc then loads of people will watch it simply because of the huge player base, it doesn’t matter if the game is perfect as long as people enjoy it.

12. What’s your impression of 4.3 so far and, in particular, melee MS effects been buffed to 25%?

Haven’t really followed all the notes, but with damage already out of control 25% MS will make a bad thing that much worse.  I’ve heard you get to ride on the back of a dragon in a boss fight though!

13. Once again, thanks for taking the time to speak with me and the best of luck at BlizzCon. Do you have any additional comments or shout-outs you’d like to make?

Big thanks to Team EG, and all our sponsors – Intel, Steelseries, Monster Energy, Kingston Hyper Technologies, MSi and so on, as well as my teammates Cdew and Talbadar, those people who have really made an effort to help us prepare such as Conradical and Reckognize and most importantly everyone who’s cheering for me at Blizzcon!  Feel free to come up and say hi if you’re going to be there!

While there’s been no official confirmation as yet, the line ups should look something like this:

World of Warcraft

StarCraft 2

Who will you be rooting for and what are your predictions? Share your thoughts in the comments below and vote in our poll.

Poll

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