Blizzard Entertainment announced earlier this week their plans for the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Arena World tournament. Players seeking to battle it out against the best in five-on-five combat can now participate in a four phase structured tournament.

Players have been anticipating the arena for a long time now. The original battlegrounds of Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, and Alterac Valley all possessed an objective based goal. With the arena now live players can play against the opposite realm in a deathmatch setting, something many have been praying for Blizzard to implement for quite some time.

Not only have players had their prayers answered, Blizzard decided to spice things up and add in a World Championship. Top teams as Notorious, Nurfed, Insurrection, Vicious Cycle, and TAO will surely be participating in this event. Make sure to check back on GotFrag for updates on the Arena standings throughout the first season. Below are the four phases for Season 1 of the World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Arena Championships.

Phase 1: Ladder
In this phase players will battle it out against other teams on their own battleground. Teams have from February 16 to April 15 in North America and Europe and March 3 to April 15 in Korea. Blizzard has stated that shortly after the season begins they will post rankings for each battlegroup on their website.

Phase 2: Qualifiers
Following the end of the ladder phase of the tournament on April 15, the top-ranked team(s) from each battlegroup will be selected to participate in the qualifiers. Each of these teams will be copied to a private realm in the corresponding region (Europe, North America, and Korea), where they will compete with the other qualifying teams from that region’s battlegroups. The qualifier round will run from April 20 to May 4 and will utilize the same ranking system as the ladders. At the end of the qualifier round, the top 8 teams from each region will be chosen to participate in live regional events for Europe, North America, and Korea.

Phase 3: Regionals
Separate live regional events will be held for Europe, Korea, and North America. The actual dates and venues for the events will be announced at a later time. As discussed above, each regional event will consist of the top 8 teams for the region, as determined by the final rankings after the qualifying events. The winners of each regional event (more than likely a different number of teams from each region) will be invited to the World of Warcraft Season 1 global finals event.

Phase 4: Global Finals
A global finals event will be held to determine the best World of Warcraft PvP team in the world. The final combatants from each region will compete against each other in this event, and the team that comes out victorious will be crowned the undisputed world champion of the inaugural World of Warcraft Arena Tournament.