Blizzard Entertainment

War Chest: Katowice 2019 brings two brand new features that we’ve never been able to offer before! You guys asked for it, and we’re ready to deliver: each race is receiving a full suite of custom building skins! Now, you’ll be able to complete your race’s transformation into the Simulant Zerg, the Terran Special Forces, and Protoss Forged.

Secondly, not only can you earn progress by playing StarCraft II, you’ll also be able to earn War Chest progress simply by watching StarCraft II. Spending time with your favorite StarCraft II streamers will now earn you experience towards your War Chest loot. Anyone who wants to stream StarCraft II can help their fellow RTS fans gain experience as long as they install the StarCraft II War Chest Extension. More on that in a moment.

Here are the nitty-gritty details for War Chest: Katowice 2019:

• War Chest initial launch: December 20
• Phase 2: January 17
• Phase 3: February 14
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This week’s brawl is Lost Cavern! It’s all-out mayhem on our single-lane battleground – Lost Cavern. Queue up, choose your Hero, and try to best to bring down the enemy Core!

Rules:

• Shuffle pick - Choose from one of three Heroes before entering the battle.
• Standard play - no talent or level restrictions.
• The first team to destroy the enemy Core wins!

Rewards:

• Complete three matches of Lost Cavern to earn a Loot Chest!

Find out more about the Heroes Brawl game mode on our ...

StarCraft II esports—the competition and the community—impressed and inspired us more than ever before in 2018, and today we are excited to shed some light on what 2019 will look like. We are still working out the details so some of this may be subject to change.  Both WCS Korea and the WCS Circuit will continue in 2019, and we look forward to sharing the full details of both programs next year. In the meantime, we are pleased to announce WCS Winter.

What Is WCS Winter?

Serving as a prelude to the WCS 2019 season, WCS Winter replaces one WCS Circuit stop. This 10-week program will consist of a pair of 32-person online tournaments—one for the Americas (including Latin America, Taiwan, ANZ/SEA, and China) and one for Europe—each with a USD $60,000 prize pool, and with WCS points awarded as outlined below. Each tournament will culminate in a live, winner-advances battle between the top six, one for Europe and one for the Americas. See the full rules, including residen...

We’ve just released a new Heroes of the Storm patch to apply a number of balance changes and bug fixes. 

Quick Navigation:

• Heroes
• Bug Fixes

Heroes

Togwaggle Druid, the famed Hearthstone combo deck that forces an empty deck upon your opponent—and makes sure they keep it—can struggle against aggressive classes that fill the board quickly. But all is not lost for King Togwaggle’s loyal subjects. Learn how one pro player turned the tide of battle with some smart tech in this week’s episode of Well Played!

Regardless of the strategy you deploy, adapting your plan by adding tech cards to your deck list is a great way to take your game to the next level. Join us next week for pro tips for the late-game!

Our latest round of Heroic Deals offers 50% off select Heroes, and brings a fresh set of skins and mounts into the featured item rotation. Check out the Hero sales and featured items listed below, and then head in-game to add them to your collection before this offer expires on January 2.

Half-Price Heroes

Featured Skins and Mounts

General

• When equipping skins, there is now an option to equip all skins of the same set to all units and buildings.
• The Galactic Celebration, Mira’s Marauders, Primal, and Purifier consoles skins have all be updated with custom UI buttons and colors.

Editor

• Co-op Mission dependencies can now be added: File > Dependences > Add Standard

Bug Fixes

Co-op

• Zeratul
  • Malwarfare: Fixed an issue that caused Artifact Fragments to spawn in areas that are not accessible to the player.
  • The Vermillion Problem: Legendary Legion units will no longer attack civilians.
  • Zeratul will now gain benefits from attack and armor upgrades with each Artifact Fragment instead of only at level 15.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented an Artifact Fragment from appearing if Zeratul was standing directly on it.           
  • Zeratul’s command card icons fo...

The fine folks of Smokywood Pastures aren’t letting a little thing like war between the Horde and the Alliance get in the way of spreading holiday cheer—or gaining a bit of profit. Winter Veil has begun in Azeroth, and with it come all the fripperies, fineries, and delectable comestibles of the holiday.

When: December 16 – January 2
Where: Initial holiday quests can be found in Orgrimmar and Ironforge, but festive decorations can be found throughout the world.

Let your spirit be light by stepping into one of the Giant Snow Globes^* found outside of the Ironforge Bank, in Orgrimmar overlooking the Valley of Wisdom, or in the Broken Isles in Dalaran. It’s a truly transformative experience letting your inner Greatfather Winter helper out. A little /dance will spread the joy to those around you.^**

The World of Warcraft Arena World Championship (AWC) and Mythic Dungeon Invitational (MDI) programs operate via official rulesets, which were established in order to set expectations around the rules of tournament play and structure, player eligibility, points, prizes, sponsorships, and player conduct. All players accept these rules in order to participate in our tournaments and are expected to abide by them at all times.

We take all violations seriously. This page will be updated as new competitive rulings are issued.

This week, we sat down with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas to answer your questions on the latest content update— Tides of Vengeance.

If you missed the live Q&A, don’t worry. We have you covered. Watch the VoD below to catch up on the latest.

Fiercely intelligent and insatiably curious, this species of fox has travelled the Great Dark Beyond to seek the companionship of the greatest heroes of Azeroth. Vulpine Familiars are born daredevils, and any one of them would make a great companion on your adventures throughout Azeroth and beyond.  

You’ll be ready to take on new adventures wherever you go with this clever new mount. Now available in the B...

The temperature has dipped in the hollow. Snow has invaded, and with snow comes snowballs! These calamitous tools of childlike whimsy will rain chaos as enemies and allies alike fly across the battlefield—or lie crushed beneath a pile of frosty destruction. Be wary, Heroes . . . winter has come to the Nexus!

Rules

• Snowballs
  • Pick from one of three randomly selected Heroes before entering the Cursed Hollow. Be quick about it though, you only have 30 seconds to choose!
  • Two types of Snowball items will appear on the ground throughout the match
    • Fluffy Snowball
      • A speedy snowball that hits a single enemy Hero in a line skill-shot while ignoring Minions and Structures
      • Knocks targets back and deals significant damage
    • Heavy Snowball...

We’ve recently released a Heroes of the Storm patch in order to address a few live bugs. Read on for details.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a number of issues causing some Mana-refund talents and abilities to fail to restore Mana.

 Battlegrounds

• Fixed an issue causing the Volskaya Foundry Support camp to lose Unstoppable after the Battleground objective spawned.

The release of Tides of Vengeance opens the way for a new Warfront — Battle for Darkshore, new dwarf and blood elf Heritage armor, Faction Assaults and more. Learn about what’s in store in our Survival Guide and feature previews.

New Warfront: Battle for Darkshore

...

Our latest round of Heroic Deals offers 50% off select Heroes, and brings a fresh set of skins and mounts into the featured item rotation. Check out the Hero sales and featured items listed below, and then head in-game to add them to your collection before this offer expires on December 18.

Half-Price Heroes

Featured Skins and Mounts

The skins and mounts that we’ve added to the featured item rotation ...

The newest Heroes of the Storm patch is now live featuring the Toys event, Sylvanas & Stitches gameplay updates, and more! Read on for more details.

NOTE: Text in ORANGE indicates a change between the PTR and Live notes.

Quick Navigation:

• General
• Art
• Battlegrounds
• ...

The final results for Hearthstone Ranked Standard, Wild, and Arena play in November 2018 are in!

The players featured below have employed top notch deck building skills, in-the-moment decision making, and unyielding dedication to achieve a most noteworthy feat!

As previously mentioned, monthly Arena rankings now take players’ best 30 consecutive Arena runs regardless of game events or format changes.

Pour a toast, pull up a chair, and join us in recognizing Hearthstone’s top Ranked Standard*, Wild, and Arena players in the Americas region!

• Standard
• ...

Heroes of the Storm’s fourth 2018 ranked season is ending soon, and we’ve got a host of new rewards that you can earn through ranked gameplay in the coming months. Read on for details!

Season Roll Dates

2019 Season 1 will begin as soon as our next patch becomes available for download in each region. Check the start and end dates below to make sure you’re able to dive in as soon as the season begins:

*Exact date may vary slightly by region.

2019 Season 1 Rewards

Players who manage to climb the ranks in the upcoming season can claim new portraits, mounts, and gold rewards for thei...

This week’s brawl is the Temple Arena! Harness the power of the Alligator, Cobra, and Jackal Temples to destroy the enemy Core!

Rules:

• Choose from one of three randomly selected Heroes before entering the Arena. Be quick about it though, you only have 30 seconds to choose!
• Everyone will begin the round at level 10 and will be asked to choose a Heroic Ability. No other talents will be available.
• During each round, slay the enemy team’s Heroes and capture the Temple Shrines to take shots at their Core!
  • The Core for each team will have set amounts of health based on the number of active Shrines.
  • Each round can have 1-3 active Shrines.
  • The first team whose Core reaches 0 health will lose th...

In Hearthstone, navigating the mulligan phase properly is key to starting off a match on the right foot. Typically, pro players will keep some low-cost cards so that they have something to play in the first few turns—but a proper mulligan goes much deeper than this. Learn how to master the mulligan based on how you anticipate the game state evolving in our latest episode of Well Played!

So you see, the mulligan isn’t just about cards you don’t want, it’s also a chance to find the cards you must have. That’s it for this week! Let us know your fave mulligan rules-of-thumb in the comments.