The Forever Open — a $100,000 level 30 Horde dueling tournament, sign-ups close October 4

The first dueling tournament of the WoW: Forever beta is on. It's organized by Tips Out — who ran the Classic Duelers League and OTK's 2023 Mak'gora — and broadcast by streamers Esfand and Xaryu. It's an open tournament: anyone with beta access can register, and registration runs on Raider.IO.

At a glance

• Format — 1v1 duels — Qualifiers (October 17) → top 4 of each class in the Finals (October 18)
• Character — PvP ruleset · Horde · level 30 · a brand-new character with the last name "Foreverpvp"
• Prize pool — $100,000 — $50,000 to the champion, $5,555 to the top player of each of the 9 classes
• Entry fee — 15 gold in game, on qualifier day
• Broadcast — twitch.tv/esfandtv and twitch.tv/xaryu (co-streaming welcome)
• Partners — Raider.IO, Starforge Systems, RestedXP

The $100,000 prize pool

The prize pool was $50,000 when the tournament was announced on September 27. The next day streamer TimTheTatman announced he would add another $50,000, making it $100,000 as of September 28.

The split in the rules document: $50,000 to the Champion, and the other $50,000 divided evenly between the top-placing player of each class — $5,555 for each of the 9 classes. Tied classes split their prize evenly. The bracket winner is crowned "Death's Duelist".

Players who win prize money must submit invoices before payment is processed. As of September 29 the Raider.IO prizes page still lists the pre-increase split ($25,000 champion, $2,777 per class).

Schedule

• Sep 27, 11am PT (18:00 UTC) — Registration opens, leveling and gearing begin — characters created before this time are ineligible
• Oct 4, 11am PT (18:00 UTC) — Registration closes — characters can only be created until then
• Oct 17, 16:59 UTC — Leveling and gearing close
• Oct 17, 17:00 UTC — Tournament starts — online check-in and Qualifiers (October 17)
• Oct 18, 22:00 UTC — Finals end (October 18)

Times are from the Raider.IO schedule. The Qualifiers format and ruleset will be released separately, at least one week before the Qualifiers.

How to enter

• 1. Create a brand-new Horde character on the PvP ruleset of the WoW: Forever beta. Characters created before 11am PT on September 27 are ineligible.
• 2. Give the character the last name "Foreverpvp" — this is required.
• 3. Register on Raider.IO (rio.gg/foreveropen) and enter your character information.
• 4. Log into that character and ask for an invite to the guild <The Forever Open III> from Tips Zug, Theboggy Foreverpvp, Admin Hulatwo, Admin Magetea, Admin Musashii or Prestige Admin.
• 5. Start leveling! Registration closes October 4 at 11am PT.

Any further characters must be registered one by one as they are created, and only within the registration period. Only one character may be selected and played during the tournament.

Event questions go to the <Forever PvP> Discord (discord.gg/YdvQnxADwP); for registration issues, ping the RaiderIO role there.

Leveling, Qualifiers, Finals

• Leveling Stage — From September 27 to October 17, level the new character to 30 and prepare for the tournament. On the morning of October 17, check in on Raider.IO before the start to secure a spot.
• Qualifiers — October 17: every registered, checked-in player who has reached level 30 and paid the 15 gold entry fee competes. The format comes out at least a week in advance.
• Finals — October 18: the top 4 of each class from the Qualifiers enter the Finals bracket and play best-of-5 duel series. The bracket winner is crowned Death's Duelist and takes the lion's share of the prize pool.

Rules

General rules

• 1. All baseline class abilities and class buffs are allowed. Class buffs from other players are only allowed if they last 2 minutes or longer (e.g. no Power Word: Shield unless you are a priest).
• 2. All holiday event buffs (e.g. the Wickerman buff) and consumables (e.g. Candy corn) are banned.
• 3. You may not leave the designated dueling location for any reason (including hearthstoning to repair). If you must log off, a maximum of 3 minutes of total offline time is allowed; past that you are disqualified and forfeit any prize money. The only exception is Warlocks, who must check in with an admin before leaving to get shards, can only leave once, and cannot interact with other characters, banks, vendors, etc. while away.
• 4. There is 1–2 minutes of downtime between duels to heal, buff and mana up.
• 5. Administrators may change dueling locations at any time due to circumstances.
• 6. Each player keeps one talent build for the Qualifiers and one for the Finals. A different build may be used in each stage, but it cannot be changed once the stage begins.
• 7. Duelists compete with one character for the entirety of the dueling stages.
• 8. Legacy points are permitted.
• 9. Competitors must stream their own perspective during the Qualifiers and Finals — duels and any bag or talent inspections — and keep the VoD for admin review. Not streaming or not keeping a VoD may forfeit all matches and prize money. Streams must be on Twitch, YouTube or Kick only.
• 10. Competitors are responsible for reading and understanding every rule in the document.

Delay of game

• No intentional delays (e.g. rogues stealthing for minutes to reset cooldowns). Non-strategic acts meant only to delay forfeit the duel. 60 seconds or more of inactivity during a duel is an immediate delay-of-game penalty and possible disqualification.
• Intentionally fleeing a duel means disqualification and forfeiting all prize money. Intentionally force-fleeing an opponent (e.g. chain-fearing them on the rim of the duel line) immediately disqualifies the player who did it. Ambiguous flee situations are reviewed and judged by the organizers.
• If a duel times out, nobody wins; the players re-duel, with food and water capped at 3 for the rest of that matchup.

Interference

• If admins and referees judge that outside interference affected a duel's outcome, the duel is timed out and replayed later in the round. If the interference was intentional or coordinated by a competitor, that competitor is immediately disqualified and forfeits all prize money.

Consumables

All consumables are allowed unless stated otherwise, except for these:

• Magic Dust
• Fire, Nature, Frost, Arcane, Holy and Shadow protection potions

A banned item may not be equipped in a match or be in your bags during a bag inspection. Violations mean immediate disqualification, forfeiting prize money and a ban from all future events. As WoW: Forever is still an unsolved game, item and consumable bans may change at any time.

Openers

• Before a duel, players stand in the dueling area chosen by the referees and administrators.
• No mounting up before opening a duel.
• Duelists start 20 yards apart: both stand on the duel flag, then walk 10 yards directly away from each other. After that, nobody moves until the duel starts and the enemy turns hostile — except a stealthed character, who can move freely.
• Once positioned, an administrator counts down 10 seconds and then tells the players to accept the duel. Not following the directive may mean disqualification and forfeiting prize money.
• No openers are guaranteed for any class.

Code of conduct, referees, inspections

• Code of conduct — Be respectful and sportsmanlike toward competitors, partners, viewers, press and staff — in game chat, stream chat and other media too. Threats, doxxing, DDoSing, harassment, discrimination and hate speech mean immediate expulsion, forfeiting prize money and bans from future events.
• Referees — Volunteer referees make the calls on rule violations, and competitors must accept their rulings.
• Cheating — Account sharing, match-fixing, stream-sniping, duel disruption, outside character intervention, client-side abuse, hacking, exploiting and banned items or strategies are all forbidden. Intentionally exploiting rule loopholes may count as cheating.
• Inspection — Characters may face a bag and talent inspection before or during the event: open bags, the talent page and the character panel on stream. Talents must match the build submitted for that stage and bags may not contain banned items.
• Submittals — Competitors may have to submit the talent build for each stage at least 24 hours before it begins; missing the deadline may mean disqualification from that stage.
• Attendance — Players absent for their match may be replaced immediately and forfeit prize money.

Getting ready for 30

The beta level cap is currently 20. The Raider.IO page lists the requirement as "Level 30 (when available in WoW: Forever Beta)", and Blizzard has only said the next phase raises the cap to 30 with new talents, class abilities and the Darkspear Islands battleground — no date has been announced yet.

• Beta Level 30 Prep — abilities, talents, dungeons, battlegrounds and rares that open at 30
• Talent calculator — plan the level 30 build you'll submit
• Spellbook — abilities and ranks learned from 21 to 30
• Races & classes — Horde racials — pick the race you'll duel with
• Legacy — Legacy points are allowed — plan your spend
• PvP — ranks, honor, battlegrounds and PvP gear

The controversy over streamers receiving questionable gold after the announcement, and Blizzard's reply, is covered separately. Blizzard responds to thread on streamers' gold