Blizzard Entertainment

WoW Classic esports returns this October with the Fall Conquest!

The WoW Classic Fall Conquest will take place over three weeks from October 3-18 within the 15v15 Arathi Basin. With $12,000 (USD) in total prizing, teams in North America and Europe will battle for their share of each region’s $6,000 (USD) prize pool!

The tournament will be split into two regions: North America and Europe. All games will take place on live servers for WoW Classic, using the War Game feature. Here’s how it all works:

• Teams of 15 players will sign up for their region. Signups are open to eligible players with a level 60 character on live servers for WoW Classic—check eligibility and sign up for NA ...

One of the biggest technical upgrades we made to the WoW Companion App for Shadowlands is the ability to support multiple expansions. We know it’s a feature many players have been asking for, and today we wanted to share some of the challenges and decisions involved in making this kind of large-scale tech change.

A Little History

The Companion App was originally designed to support one expansion: Legion. Leading up to Battle for Azeroth, we made the decision to prioritize several major back-end improvements, including the ability for the app to share code with the PC client, which allows us to take advantage of many of the features and tools that are available to the main game’s UI (user interface) that the app previously did not have access to. The tradeoff was that we weren’t able to build out the kind of framework that would be necessary to support more than one expansion at a time—so we swapped the single expansion that the app supported from Legion ...

Blink into battle now to earn rad new limited-time rewards, including the Comic Book Tracer skin.

From now until September 28, players will be able to earn a player icon, seven unique sprays, and Comic Book Tracer (epic) for a total of nine new rewards.

• LET’S GET TO IT! - Learn how to unlock brand-new Tracer rewards
• WATCH TO EARN - Earn special comic-themed cosmetics by watching Twitch streams
• NEW COMIC - Learn more about issue #1 of the new comic, Tracer—London Calling

LET’S GET TO IT

Pull out your pulse pistols and pew pew your way into the fight with special comic-themed content available to unlock in-game. Wins in Quick Play, Competitive Play, or Arcade will all earn you a limited-time player icon, a spray, and a new epic...

Below are the Arena leaderboards for July 1, 2020 – August 31, 2020. Arena rankings reflect players’ best 30 consecutive runs throughout a season. The players featured below have exhibited top-notch deckbuilding skills, in-the-moment decision making, and unyielding dedication to achieve a most noteworthy feat!

For an Arena run to be included in this season, its end time must have been between July 1 at 10:00 a.m. and August 31 at 9:59:59 a.m.

Dynamic ladder rankings are now also available for the Standard and Wild ladders.

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Closing out the fifth Masters Tour of 2020, David “Frenetic” Quiñones of Spain is the latest to earn the title of Masters Tour champion! Frenetic defeated Edoarado “cagnetta99” Cutajar in the finals 3-0. With his victory, Frenetic finishes the weekend...

As the last of our ongoing series of articles featuring many of the collectibles in World of Warcraft, we’ve focused on the Burning Crusade. The fel-infused lands of Outland are waiting to be explored.

There are a variety of ways to lay claim to these mounts, pets, and toys, whether it's from battling pets in the wild, collecting specific currencies, or facing Illidan within the Black Temple, you're sure to expand your stash of treasures.

Currencies

There are a variety of currencies used in the Burning Crusade. Here are some of the primary types that you'll want to make sure you have at hand.

• Gold
• ...

There’s a war on in the Korprulu Sector: Battlecruisers are meeting Leviathans, and the asteroid fields are littered with the glowing husks of capital ships. The throne of the Zerg has been usurped by the invading Betrayer King of the Alliance, but there is a force that stands to oppose him. Who will emerge victorious? The newly crowned King of Blades, Arthas, or the resistance led by the Emperor of the Dominion, Anduin?

Starting today, you can see the fight play out for yourself in the newly dropped CraftWars patch, with new skins, mounts, and more. To take in the creation tale of this mighty patch, we sat down with Assistant Art Director Trevor Jacobs and Senior Artist Andrew Kinabrew.

King of Blades Arthas

...

What if we told you it was time to settle who’d win a fight between your favorite Warcraft and StarCraft heroes? Now, what if we told you that you’d be the one to settle that grudge? No more time for hypotheticals—the CraftWars Event has arrived in-game today, and worlds are colliding!

Take a look below for details on the new Event, the next Nexus Anomaly, the latest round of Hero reworks, and more!

New Event: CraftWars

The reemergence of the Dark Nexus has led to fiercer competition for Singularities than ever before—but a small group of Heroes is transforming the conflict. The Realm Crafter they’ve developed doesn’t just bring Heroes from multiple dimensions together in the Nexus—it actually fuses them, along with their friendships, rivalries, and powers.

Does Mei have it in her to be a Death Knight? What are t...

“This anomaly is putting the power directly into your hands, giving you the choice of when to utilize it.” 

The thundering drumbeats that sound from Azeroth’s arenas now echo throughout the Nexus. Fingers, claws, and tendrils clutch trinkets suddenly imbued with the unstoppable force of a rampaging war machine. This power can be yours. You need only claim your Gladiator’s Medallion and let nothing stand in your way.

The Gladiator’s Medallion is our 4^th and newest experiment in Nexus Anomalies: the limited-time gameplay shake-ups that temporarily grace the Battlegrounds before heading back into the space between realms. During this new anomaly, every Hero will be equipped with an activated ability that instantly clears most disabling effects and grants a brief Unstoppable buff, though with a hefty 5-minute cooldown. Consider it your new “I’ve made a huge mistake” undo button, or a tool to help you pull of...

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch is live and brings a new Nexus Anomaly, ARAM mode, new skins and mounts, along with D.Va and Gazlowe reworks and more! Read on for more information.

NOTE: Orange text indicates a change between PTR and Live notes.

Quick Navigation:

• Nexus Anomaly
• General
• Collection
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The Hearthstone Masters Tour Online: Montreal is hitting your screens this weekend! With over 300 invited players from more than 40 countries, the field is wide open for whoever has mastered the lessons of Scholomance Academy. The champion will take home their share of the $3,000,000 (USD) total prize pool for Hearthstone Masters Tour 2020, the Masters Tour trophy, and will be one step closer to earning an invite to Grandmasters. Join us this weekend for all of the competitive action only on YouTube Gaming!

Details

• Venue: Online - ...

This year we’ve been all called upon to overcome many things, and we’re ever grateful to you—our community—for being with us each step of the way during these uncertain times. In that spirit of unity, and as a token of our appreciation, we want to collaborate with everyone who owns Shadowlands to create a mount that you can ride across the realms of the afterlife.

Updated Sept. 18: After two weeks and with hundreds of thousands of players internationally casting their votes, the popular vote for the mount you want to ride is: The Wandering Ancient! Our designers will now work on bringing this mount to life, and we'll provide more information to share with you closer to its release.

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What do you get when you mix a professional gamer from the future, energy drinks, a huge mech, and tabletop roleplaying game archetypes? According to David Warner, senior game designer on the Heroes of the Storm team, the outcome of this amalgamation is the brand-new D.Va rework, releasing with Heroes of the Storm’s upcoming patch.

We caught up with Warner to hear more about everyone’s favorite MEKA pilot and what it’s like to rework heroes.

For Warner, game design is like a constantly-changing jigsaw puzzle with an unknown number of parts. Trying to suss out the best direction to take a design is a point of frustration, but when all of the pieces seamlessly connect, it brings him an unparalleled feeling of fulfillment.

“Personally,” Warner says, “the best feeling is when you finally get all the segments of a particular build in place and you start getting feedback about ...

Deep beneath the campus grounds lies the cobweb-ridden inner sanctum of Scholomance Academy, where Headmaster Kel’Thuzad has sealed away many a leather-bound chronicle and magical “experiment” gone awry. With powerful forces of dark magic in proximity, only brave (foolish?) souls dare meddle in the midst of this Forbidden Library!

The Forbidden Library is a limited-time event with new content unlocking weekly!

September 8 – Battlegrounds Parties, New Heroes, and More!

We’re excited to announce that starting Septembe...

The 18.2 patch kicks off the Forbidden Library limited-time event on September 8 and includes a new Battlegrounds feature and update! On September 15, the all-new Hearthstone Book of Heroes solo experience will unlock, and on September 23 players can duke it out for big rewards in the Heroic Brawliseum!

Battlegrounds Updates

NEW FEATURE – BATTLEGROUNDS PARTIES

With the introduction of Battlegrounds Parties on September 8, players will be able to queue up for Battlegrounds matches with more than one other player! Battlegrounds Parties will allow groups of players to queue Battlegrounds together, and it supports a full lobby for private games! Here’s how it works:

• Up to 4 players will be able to qu...

You’re going to want to take a look at this Gazlowe hero rework . . . he’s a miracle of Goblin engineering!

Our favorite scrapper has gotten a mechanical and quality-of-life upgrade just in time for the upcoming CraftWars patch dropping on September 8. With these changes, Gazlowe—the Nexus’s very own demolition man—has been fully realized as a frontline Bruiser specializing in disruption and zone control.

Learn about the changes to Gazlowe’s abilities, talents, and more below!

The Demolition Plans

The Heroes team had very clear goals with Gazlowe’s rework: on the gameplay side, the devs saw an opportunity to make him more effective in team fights and solo laning. On the thematic end, they knew they wanted to play up the Goblin engineering fantasy and used this as a pillar for the changes to Gazlowe’s kit.

A Peek at the Results

Gazlowe now comes with a new resource system called Scrap to replace and reinvent ...

Whether you’re working on collecting pets or mounts, or learning to fly in Battle for Azeroth, your goals are within your reach!

Beginning September 1 through the month of September, players can earn bonus reputation with the Impressive Influence buff, which will increase reputation gains by 100% with Legion and all Battle for Azeroth factions including Uldum Accord and Rajani!

What are you waiting for? Azeroth awaits.

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until the week of September 7, PDT. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

Quick Navigation:

• Nexus Anomaly
• ...

In just a few weeks after the release of Shadowlands, Season 1 will begin and the gates of Castle Nathria will open as the expansion’s first raid experience.

Castle Nathria

Infiltrate the iron-barred walls of Castle Nathria, a 10-boss raid located in the shadowy realm of Revendreth. Face off against unfathomable horrors in a race to uncover a sinister plot and save these lands from a dark and twisted future.

Raid Unlock Schedule (North America):

November 10 – Normal and Heroic difficulties
November 17 – Mythic Castle Nathria, Raid Finder Wing 1
December 1 – Raid Finder Wing 2
December 15 – Raid Finder Wing 3
January 5 – Raid Finder Wing 4

Shadowlands Season 1

Once the gates of Castle Nathria open on November 10, Shadowlands Season 1 will also begin which introduces a new seasonal affix in Mythic Keystone dungeons along with a new season of PvP action.

Beyond Azeroth’s shattered sky, a realm of infinite afterlives awaits: the Shadowlands, where mortal souls go to reckon with their pasts, discover new purpose . . . or suffer an eternity of torment. Seize your destiny beginning October 26.

Upon entering the Shadowlands, Azeroth’s champions will encounter an otherworld in disarray. Virtuous souls are being wrongfully cast into the eternal darkness of the Maw, while the Covenants—powerful factions who hold dominion over the afterlife’s disparate realms—face ruin and strife as the flow of the Shadowlands’ essential anima mysteriously dwindles. As an ancient, long-bound evil gathers the strength to break its chains, players must carve their path through the uncharted reaches of the beyond, forge a pact with the Covenant that most aligns with their own principles and purpose—and ultimately restore balance to the hereafter.

Join the Glob...