PvP-Live Armageddon Tournament
Followers of official Blizzard Twitter accounts will certainly have heard about the well-publicized WoW arena "Armageddon" tournament, hosted by PVP Live, that took place this weekend just passed. It was great to see Blizzard get behind a WoW PvP tournament in such a big way, after years of other, less recognized tournaments.
After some early issues with audio, which were mostly repaired by the Sunday, the tournament kicked off in style on the Friday night with a face-off to see which of the newer teams would claim the eighth "seed", by which they meant place in the tournament. Following that, the tournament continued, in a bracketed structure, commentated by the ever-outstanding Isaac "Azael" Cummings-Bentley and Jared "vhell" Coulston. They were joined by PvP-Live's "Mackaw" on a beautifully-crafted set to lead viewers through the tournament.
There was an early surprise as one of the favorite teams, The Three Amigos, lost to You Will Love Or Hate This, a ret paladin/hunter/restoration shaman team led by Arena Junkies' Vanguards. But, as many would have predicted, the final came down to The Three Amigos (mage, lock, resto shaman) and SkillCapped (lock, ele shaman, resto druid) -- the same team who took home first place at BlizzCon, and recently competed in the Yaspresents tournament.
Unfortunately, the final was plagued with disconnect issues, ever a difficult thing for a tournament organizer to respond to. Despite this, the first round of the final was an incredible game to watch, with shaman healer Charles "CDew" Dewland managing to keep his team up through huge dampening stacks and huge pressure to take a nail-biting win.
The second round looked to be turning out much the same, until another disconnect hit SkillCapped, which The Three Amigos decided not to wait for like they had in round one, taking the game while it was unclear whether all their opponents were actually able to play. This clearly hit SkillCapped's morale, as their performance slipped dramatically in game three, which they eventually lost. As all six players were apparently together in the SkillCapped house, according to the commentators, it was likely a tense afternoon between these friends as The Three Amigos emerged the victors 3-0.
