The $100,000 Forever Open is over: Warlockguy wins the $50,000 grand prize, with Warlocks in both final spots

The Orgrimmar map from the WoW Forever client

2026-10-19 · ForeverDB

The Forever Open, a community-run level 30 Horde duel tournament on the WoW Forever beta, ran its qualifiers on October 17 and its finals on October 18. Reports and the event's own bracket say Warlockguy won the $50,000 grand prize, beating fellow Warlock Neepzen in the final, with Warlocks taking both top spots. It isn't a Blizzard event; Wowhead reported Blizzard provided an arena in Hyjal Crater for the finals, but Blizzard has not run or policed it. Here is what the organisers and Blizzard said, what the press reported, and the concerns players raised about gold.

The "$100,000 tournament" people were talking about is The Forever Open, an open-registration dueling tournament on the World of Warcraft: Forever beta. Tips Out announced it on X on September 27 with a $50,000 prize pool, and it was streamed on Esfand's and Xaryu's Twitch channels. A day later TimTheTatman added another $50,000. It is a community event, not a Blizzard one. In the run-up it was pulled into the beta's gold-buying row, and some players wanted it stopped. This article separates what the organisers and Blizzard have said, what the press has reported, and what players claim.

Update: the Forever Open is over, Warlockguy wins the $50,000 grand prize (October 18)

The finals ran on October 18 and the tournament is now finished. Reports and the event's own bracket say Warlockguy, playing a Warlock, won the $50,000 grand prize, beating fellow Warlock Neepzen in the best-of-five grand final. Both of the top two were Warlocks. Warcraft Tavern reported the result, and the full bracket is on Raider.IO.

Player and press reports, not a Blizzard change or statement. Blizzard did not run the tournament and has not posted any results on its forums or Bluesky. The result rests on the organisers' bracket and other sites; we are repeating what they report, not confirming it from the game or from Blizzard.

Warcraft Tavern lists the nine class prizes of $5,555 each as won by: Minpojke (Druid), Fvp (Hunter), a four-way tie between Allyana, Teleporter, Venruk and Yonezka (Mage), Azzu (Paladin), Nieze (Priest), Justwoo (Rogue), Cdew (Shaman), Neepzen (Warlock) and Mag (Warrior). As the champion's own class share goes to the next-best player of that class under the rules, Neepzen, the runner-up, is listed as the Warlock class winner.

With both finalists playing Warlocks, some players are arguing that Warlocks are too strong in one-on-one PvP. In PvP tournament are we kidding? a player congratulates Warlockguy but says the winners' bracket was "warlock after warlock", that fear-and-reset play was hard to watch, and asks Blizzard to look at Warlock PvP. That is a player's view, not a Blizzard statement, and the game files can't settle whether a class is "too strong". See our Warlock class page for what the beta client gives the class.

Player opinion, not a Blizzard change or statement. No Blizzard post responds to the Warlock-balance argument, and no tuning change has been announced because of the tournament.

Final standings: the qualifiers ran on October 17 and the finals on October 18. The bracket, each player's class and the result are on ForeverDB's Forever Open scoreboard.

Blizzard provided an official arena in Hyjal Crater (reported October 16)

On October 16 Wowhead reported that Senior Game Designer Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield said on the WoW Forever Podcast that Blizzard would provide an official dueling arena for the second day of the tournament, the finals on October 18. According to Wowhead, the venue is Hyjal Crater, an unused area of the map that players can't normally reach, so officials would be on hand to help Tips Out and the team get there.

Wowhead says Blizzard also intended to add a couple of NPCs selling soul shards and reagents, and possibly a cooldown reset vendor, depending on what the tournament needed. It reports that the area was already planned for later but was brought forward into the beta for this event. This was the first thing Blizzard did for the tournament itself, though it stayed a community event, not a Blizzard one, and this was about the venue, not the rules.

Reported by Wowhead from the WoW Forever Podcast, not a written Blizzard post. We have found no forum or Bluesky post from Blizzard about the arena, we cannot confirm in the beta client files we have that Hyjal Crater is an inaccessible, unused zone, and we have not confirmed whether the finals were in fact held there. Aggrend's words reach us only through Wowhead's summary, so we don't put them in quotes.

What the organisers said

Everything in this section comes from the tournament's official rules and the copy on Raider.IO, as we read them on October 9.

Prize pool: $100,000. $50,000 goes to the champion. The rest is split evenly between the best player of each class: $5,555 for each of the nine classes. For the champion's own class, that class's share goes to the second-best player of the class.
Who paid for the increase: Esfand thanked TimTheTatman on X on September 28 for doubling the prize pool to $100,000. Icy Veins reported the same. The rules don't name any other sponsor.
Who could play: a brand new Horde character on the beta's PvP ruleset, with the last name Foreverpvp, at level 30, with a 15 gold entry fee.
Registration closed. It closed on October 2 at 10:00 a.m. PT, two days earlier than first planned. Icy Veins quotes Tips Out saying they had "4,000 registrations" and had reached the limit of what their staff could manage in the qualifiers.
Dates: qualifiers on October 17, finals on October 18, where the top four of each class played best-of-3 and best-of-5 duel series.
Not a Blizzard event. The rules say so themselves: "World of Warcraft Dueling is not an officially supported Blizzard esport."

What the rules say about gold

The official rules document lists "gold-buying during the course of the tournament" among the forms of cheating, next to account sharing, match-fixing and stream-sniping. Penalties for cheating can include losing the match, disqualification, losing the prize money and a ban from future events. The document doesn't say whether "the course of the tournament" includes the levelling stage (September 27 to October 17), and it says nothing about gold gifted by viewers or how gold would be checked. The copy on Raider.IO doesn't have the gold-buying words at all. Seramate reported on October 1 that a rules update had made gold buying "Explicitly banned".

A few other rules matter to the gold argument. Legacy points are allowed. Only a class's own buffs count, and world buffs and quest buffs are banned. Players must show their bags, talents and character panel on stream when inspected. The organisers can change the rules at any time.

What Blizzard has said

Blizzard has not posted on its own forums or Bluesky about the tournament itself, and it posted no results. Its one public step, the Hyjal Crater arena above, reached us through a podcast reported by Wowhead, not a written post. We searched the US and EU forums and Blizzard's tracker of staff posts up to October 16 and found nothing on the tournament there. What Blizzard has posted is about real-money trading (RMT) in general. On September 28 community manager Kaivax posted the same statement on both forums, on the EU side in a thread called "The $50k Duel Tournament" (its old address no longer loads; the same post is now in Perma Bans For Gold Buyers!). It ends:

We’re once again asking all players to be very cautious when it comes to accepting gifts from strangers or other one-sided transactions. If it becomes apparent that a recipient knew or should-have-known that gold wasn’t from a legitimate source, they may be subject to account actions as well. Kaivax, Blizzard community manager

On October 1 he followed up in Actions Taken Against Botting and RMT. Blizzard said it had been acting against botters and against accounts that bought or knowingly received illicit gold, and that a warning will appear when you trade with strangers:

Our stance on RMT in World of Warcraft is crystal clear: any account belonging to any player that is found to have participated in generating, selling, buying, or receiving illicit gold is subject to the gold being removed, account suspensions, or permanent account closures. Kaivax, Community Manager

Blizzard has named no player in any of these posts. Our full write-ups of the policy are Gold buying in WoW Forever and the crackdown's follow-up.

What the press reported

Reported, not confirmed by Blizzard. The two reports below come from Dexerto and GameSpot, mostly from what the streamers said on their own streams. Blizzard has not named either player.

Ziqo. Dexerto reported on September 30 that clips showed Ziqo accepting 380 gold from a level one character, then 175 more from another, after remarking on stream that the gold couldn't have been earned naturally. It says Blizzard then wiped the gold from his mage, leaving him with nine silver, and that Ziqo confirmed Blizzard did sweep up all my gold on that mage. According to Dexerto his account was not banned or suspended, and some players asked the organisers to bar him from the tournament.
Payo. GameSpot reported on October 2 that Payo said on stream I never hid the fact I want my chat to use their credit cards to fill my bags, and that his account was banned a few days later. GameSpot says he apologised, said he had never bought gold himself, was allowed to make another account, and said I learned from my mistake, and I will never ever promote gold buying again. GameSpot describes him as looking to participate in the game's upcoming tournament.

Neither outlet reports a statement from Tips Out, Esfand or Xaryu, and we haven't found one on whether these players ended up entering.

What players were worried about

Player reports and opinions, not Blizzard statements. Below is what players said on the official forums in the run-up. Claims about named players are their claims; we cannot verify them, and the game files can't either.

Gifted gold as a head start. In Tourney or Streamer lottery? (October 1) a player argues that streamers taking gold from their viewers is absolutely no different than a player going to a website and buying gold, and that organised groups and viewers farming for them leave ordinary entrants no real chance.
Real money, like GDKP. Threads such as GDKP is Banned, shouldn't a tournament for Real Money be as well? (September 29), Wouldn't a $50k dueling tournament (October 2) and, on the EU forums, Why are real money tournaments allowed? (September 30) argue that a cash prize pushes people to buy gold, the same reason they give for gold-bid raids being banned. That premise is theirs: we have no Blizzard post about GDKP rules in WoW Forever.
The entry fee. Tournament Gold Fee (September 30) asks who controls the gold from the 15 gold entry fees and whether it will be checked for RMT. The rules set the fee but don't say what happens to the gold.
Favouritism. Blizzard has made their stance on RMT very clear (September 29) says streamers get a slap on the wrist and a finger-waggle. GameSpot also notes players saying Blizzard is still too lenient with streamers.
New claims about another streamer (October 7 and 8). Several player threads, among them Streamer warlock post wool cloth for 120g, claim that a third streamer accepted large amounts of gold on stream, sold cheap items on the auction house for far more than they're worth, and was let into the tournament after registration closed. These are forum claims only: we found no response from the streamer, the organisers or Blizzard and can't confirm any of it, so we aren't naming him.
Gatecrashing. Is there anything to stop players from gatecrashing this $50,000 tournament (September 29) worries that angry players will disrupt it, and threads like Attack on PvP Tournament openly suggest Alliance raids on it. The rules say a duel disrupted from outside is redone later in the round, and a competitor behind the interference is disqualified.
Horde lock. In $50k Horde duel tourney + I literally cannot make a Horde toon (September 25) a player says the game said no because of faction imbalance when they tried to make a Horde character for it.
Calls to stop it. Ban the tournament and This Tournament Needs To Be Shut Down (both October 8) asked Blizzard to halt it. Many replies disagreed; one says It’s just a beta, calm down, it ultimately has no impact on WoW: Forever so don’t let it impact you.

With the tournament over, not every worry played out. Other players thanked Blizzard afterwards; in one thread a player credits the team for "listening to community" and the dueling map. Those too are player views, not a Blizzard statement.

What it means for you

Nothing changes for launch. It was a community event on the beta. Blizzard hasn't announced any change to realms, rules or the November 4 launch because of it, and it has announced no class tuning off the back of the Warlock result. Dexerto and GameSpot report that the beta runs until October 21, three days after the finals, the date in Blizzard's own beta launch post. (Update, 20 October: Blizzard moved the end to 10:00 a.m. PDT on Friday, October 23, and the beta closed then.)
The gold rules are the same for everyone. Blizzard's posts don't make an exception for streamers or tournament players. Be careful with large gifts from strangers: by Blizzard's own words, a recipient who "knew or should-have-known" can be actioned too.
It happened in the game world. The duels were held at places the organisers picked, and Wowhead reported the October 18 finals would be in Hyjal Crater, an area you can't normally reach. The qualifiers and finals were streamed on Esfand's and Xaryu's channels.
Curious about the classes? The final was Warlock against Warlock. See our Warlock class page for what the beta client gives the class, and our consumables page for how level 30 duellists prepared.

What's confirmed and what isn't

Reported (press and the event bracket): that Warlockguy, a Warlock, won the $50,000 grand prize on October 18, beating fellow Warlock Neepzen in the final, with Warlocks taking both top spots. This rests on Warcraft Tavern and the Raider.IO bracket, not on Blizzard; Blizzard posted no results.
Confirmed (organisers): the prize pool was $100,000, registration closed on October 2, the qualifiers and finals were on October 17 and 18, and the rules call it not an official Blizzard esport.
Confirmed (organisers): the official rules list gold buying "during the course of the tournament" as cheating. Not clear: whether that covered the levelling stage or gifted gold, and the Raider.IO copy leaves it out.
Confirmed (Blizzard): RMT is banned on the beta and at launch, and accounts that buy or knowingly receive illicit gold can lose the gold, be suspended or be closed.
Reported by Wowhead, from a podcast: that Blizzard would provide an official arena in Hyjal Crater for day two (October 18), with staff helping the players reach it and NPCs for soul shards and reagents, and maybe a cooldown reset vendor. Blizzard has not posted this in writing, we can't check Hyjal Crater in the client files, and we have not confirmed the finals were held there.
Reported by the press, not confirmed by Blizzard: that gold was removed from Ziqo's mage, and that Payo's main account was banned. Both accounts rest on the streamers' own words as Dexerto and GameSpot report them.
Player opinion, not confirmed by anything official: that Warlocks are too strong in one-on-one PvP. No Blizzard post responds to it, and no tuning change has been announced because of the tournament.
Not confirmed: the forum claims about a third streamer, and that any player was let in after registration closed.
Still not said by anyone official: that Blizzard ran, policed or took sides over the tournament. Providing a venue is not the same as running the event, and Blizzard posted no results.