The world’s greatest StarCraft II and World of Warcraft Arena players will come together at BlizzCon 2011 to rip each other to shreds. These top-flight competitors have been invited based on their performance in previous tournaments around the globe, and will be fighting for some serious cash and the prestigious Global Champion title.

Global Battle.net Invitational — StarCraft II

The StarCraft II tournament format adheres to a standard setup. All sixteen players have been seeded into a double-elimination bracket, to compete in a series of best-of-three matches. The first player to win two games will take a series. If a player loses a match, they’re not out yet, they instead move to the consolation bracket, where they could potentially come back to win the entire tournament. If a player loses two matches they are out of the running for the finals. The map pool and prizes for the StarCraft II portion of the Global Battle.net Invitational is as follows:

Xel’Naga Caverns
Shakuras Plateau
The Shattered Temple
Antiga Shipyard
Abyssal Caverns

First place – $50,000
Second place – $25,000
Third place – $10,000

Two rotating teams of shoutcasters will bring you all of the action; Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski will be paired up with his hetero nerd life partner Nick “Tasteless” Plott, and Sean “Day[9]” Plott will dual-cast with JP McDaniel.

Global Battle.net Invitational – World of Warcraft

The World of Warcraft Arena competition is going to be changing up this year. It will still be 3v3, but the tournament format has undergone some serious changes. The tournament is now broken up into two phases; Round Robin and a single elimination Championship Bracket. In addition, a new time-stacking difficulty and time limit have been implemented. At the 15-minute mark (from the time the gates are opened) in any match, a 25% healing debuff will go in to effect, and the debuff is increased by 10% each minute after that (35% at 16 minutes, 45% at 17 minutes, 55% at 18 minutes, 65% at 19 minutes). If a match hits the 20-minute mark, all players in the arena are banished and incapacitated to ensure that no more damage is issued beyond the time limit.

This banish-effect will help the referee determine the appropriate outcome based on which phase they’re currently competing in (Round Robin or the Championship Bracket).

    Round Robin

    • During the Round Robin phase, every team will play a match against every other team in the tournament, providing competitors with a very even playing field. Matches in the Round Robin phase will be a best-of-three series, in which teams earn Tournament Points to advance to the Single Elimination phase. Winning a match will earn three Tournament Points, tying a match by hitting the 20-minute mark when the score is already 1-1 will earn both teams one Tournament Point, and losing a match will earn no Tournament Points.

      Team compositions (which class each person chooses to play) are locked for each match of the Round Robin tournament, and may only be changed between matches (ie: team compositions may not be altered between games in a single best-of-three series).

    • Single Elimination

    • The four highest-scoring teams from the Round Robin phase of the tournament will move on to a Single Elimination bracket with a best-of-five match format. The main difference between this phase and the Round Robin is that there are no ties, matches will be decided by Damage Done if the time limit is reached, and a team is knocked out of the tournament if they lose a match. The third place team will be decided by a consolation match between the first two teams to get knocked out of the Single Elimination Tournament.

First place – $75,000
Second place – $30,000
Third place – $15,000

All of the World of Warcraft action will be brought to you by Luke “Virulence” Bodenheimer, Jared “Vhell” Coulston, and Soe Gschwind.

Don’t forget to tune in for the free (standard definition) tournament streams during BlizzCon, or take in all the high-definition detail by snagging a Virtual Ticket.