Blizzard has been hard at work keeping things moving in the first quarter of 2020. They’ve recently announced massive overhauls to their StarCraft II competitive scene, as well as new seasons in Diablo III, StarCraft: Remastered, and even a ladder reset in Diablo II. But they aren’t resting on their laurels; Blizzard recently announced a few changes and their plans for the Mythic Dungeon International (MDI) and the Arena World Championship (AWC) for 2020.
One change that affects both is Blizzard’s announcement that their esports will now be moving to their YouTube channel, a welcome change that provides easy access for all esports fans. You can tune into their official channel here as early as April 11th to catch the start of the MDI.
Other than that, though, we’ll be primarily focusing on the 2020 plans for the Arena World Championship. We’ve already spoken on the MDI changes, which you can read all about here.
This upcoming year will be the thirteenth year of the AWC, as well as the final season of Battle for Azeroth before the Shadowlands expansion kicks in. As such, Blizzard admits that there’s “more on the line than ever before,” and seem excited to be shaking up the norm.
Beginning in Spring, anyone will be able to sign up for the AWC’s online qualification cups. All eight online cups will award a US$10,000 prize pool and AWC points. Teams with the most AWC points after all four cups in North America and Europe will be invited to compete in the AWC finals. There, the eight teams will compete for their share of the largest AWC prize pool to date – US$500,000!
But shadows of the upcoming future are looming in the distance. The AWC will start back up once Shadowlands sees release, with the fiercest gladiators coming to clash together once again. The first AWC Tournament Series of the upcoming expansion will host two competitive seasons, complete with online cups and two in-person tournaments. This will also include a mid-year LAN and a finals event around the summer, similar to the finals for Battle for Azeroth.
There’s still plenty down the pipeline that hasn’t been released yet. Much of this is Blizzard wanting to keep some of it secret while a good chunk is simply that they haven’t quite finalized their plans. Shadowlands seems to hold a great deal of promise for the esports scene, both for the AWC and the MDI. We’ll just have to enjoy what 2020 has in store while we wait for Shadowlands to come shake everything back up!
