Blizzard has stayed busy in this first quarter of 2020 with a special focus on esports, it seems. While StarCraft II has its esports system restructured with the incoming changes of 2020, they’ve also turned to World of Warcraft’s modern Battle for Azeroth servers to make a few tweaks to the scene there. They’ve just announced their plans for the 2020 Mythic Dungeon International, as well as for 2020’s Arena World Championship.
For now we’ll be focusing on the former, but there’s one big change that affects both: World of Warcraft Esports is moving to YouTube! All of the content both for the MDI and AWC, including live broadcasts and VODs, will be hosted on YouTube to make it easier for fans to access. You can tune into their MDI broadcasts on April 11th here.
The Mythic Dungeon International and Arena World Championship return in 2020 to crown the champions of Battle for Azeroth. ⚔️
We've made some h̷́͂͠ug̵̐͊̅̾̎͑̂e ch̵͒̂̔̄̅̚à̷̭̙̩̭̠̾̏̈nges̵̈́̋͛͛ this year, click the link below to learn more! 👀
📜 https://t.co/SuRJBsaGwi pic.twitter.com/fPLFBxYY3X
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) February 13, 2020
Moving to the MDI, though, what do we have? Blizzard is excited about the changes they’ve made, with the first focus being on the format. The Europe and Asia (EU/Asia) division will now include players from Europe, Korea, China, Taiwan, Africa, and the Middle East. Additionally, the Americas (AMER) division will include players from The Americas (North, Central, and South), Australia, and New Zealand.
Teams will be participating in the division based on where the majority of their team’s players reside. If four players on a team are in Korea and one is in New Zealand, for example, the team will be considered EU/Asia division.
The season’s final will also have a massive in-person LAN, with a prize pool of US$300,000 for the elite teams to compete for. Moving forward, Blizzard will also be considering all MDI seasons as standalone events with a LAN final to cap each of them. This will allow them the ability to quickly iterate on changes and upgrades that they feel necessary.
A further change is the addition of the new dungeon, Operation: Mechagon. This eight-boss dungeon provides eight challenging bosses split into two separate wings, Junkyard and Workshop. They’ve also added the new Awakened affix, which will allow players to discover obelisks throughout the dungeon and pull themselves through the veil to the shadowy world of Ny’alotha. Within Ny’alotha, players will face one of N’Zoth’s powerful servants, which they must defeat or the servant will then join forces with the final boss in the instance.
Looking forward, Blizzard is excited to see what changes will come with this competitive season as they prepare for Shadowlands. They hint that there’ll be more to share as the Shadowlands expansion approaches, but until then, we’ll just have to enjoy the 2020 MDI!
