How to Enter The Forever Open: Forever's $100,000 Duel Tournament, Rules and Deadlines
The Forever Open is a 1v1 dueling tournament played on the WoW: Forever beta, with a $100,000 prize pool, run by Tips Out and broadcast by Esfand and Xaryu. It is open entry — anybody with beta access can register — and it is not a Blizzard event. The rules say so themselves: "World of Warcraft Dueling is not an officially supported Blizzard esport."
The reason to read this today rather than on October 16 is the deadline: registration closes October 4 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific (8:00 p.m. CEST). Late entries are not accepted, and the character you plan to compete with has to have been created before registration opened.
Original editorial illustration by RealmList, generated for this article. This is artwork, not game footage or official promotional material.
The dates
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| September 27, 11:00 a.m. PT | Registration opens; eligible characters must be created after this moment |
| October 4, 11:00 a.m. PT | Registration closes |
| October 17 | Check-in, 15 gold entry fee, open qualifiers; top four of each class advance |
| October 18 | Finals — best-of-five duel series, 17:00–22:00 UTC per Raider.IO's event page |
| October 21 | The Forever beta's last full day of testing |
Between registration closing and the qualifiers there are thirteen days to level a character to 30, gear it, choose professions and farm consumables. The level 30 cap only arrived on October 1, so that window is the entire gearing runway.
The entry requirements, and the trap in them
Beta access. From the opt-in on the Forever website, or guaranteed by pre-purchasing the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection.
A brand-new Horde character on the PvP ruleset. Created after 11:00 a.m. PT on September 27. A level 20 character made before that date does not qualify.
The surname must be Foreverpvp. This is a hard requirement, not a convention.
The faction lock is the part people miss. On Forever's PvP ruleset an account can only hold characters of one faction. If your account already has Alliance characters there, you cannot create a Horde one — you would need a second account. On top of that, the more populated faction can be closed to new character creation, which was already happening on September 25. If you can still create a Horde character on the PvP ruleset, do it before you assume you can later.
Register on Raider.IO, then join the tournament Discord and the tournament guild as the sign-up steps describe. You may register more than one character during sign-ups, but you compete with one and cannot swap after check-in.
Check in on the morning of October 17 through Raider.IO and pay the 15 gold entry fee.
Submit your talent build at least 24 hours before each stage. You can run a different build in the qualifiers than in the finals, but not change it once a stage has started.
Stream your own duels on Twitch, YouTube or Kick, including any bag or talent inspection, and keep the VOD. No stream means forfeiting your matches and any prize money.
How a duel runs
- Both players start 20 yards apart; a referee counts down 10 seconds before you accept the duel.
- You get one to two minutes between duels to heal, buff and drink.
- More than three minutes offline in total is a disqualification.
- Sixty seconds of inactivity in a duel draws a delay-of-game penalty; stalling or running away can be a disqualification.
- Warlocks must check in with an admin before leaving to farm Soul Shards. They may leave once, and cannot interact with other players, banks or vendors while away.
What is banned
Allowed: every baseline class ability, your own class buffs, buffs from other players lasting two minutes or longer, Legacy points, and any consumable not on the banned list.
Banned outright:
- Magic Dust
- Fire, Nature, Frost, Arcane, Holy and Shadow protection potions
- Holiday buffs and treats — the Wickerman buff and Candy Corn are the named examples
- Buffs from other players shorter than two minutes
Carrying a banned item in your bags during a match is grounds for disqualification, and referees can inspect bags and talents before or during the event. Clear them out before check-in rather than relying on remembering.
The Legacy rules changed on September 30
Legacy points are allowed, and that was the source of a loud complaint: the Legacy system rewards players who can level several characters and professions before October 17, which most people with jobs cannot do in thirteen days.
On September 30 the organisers answered it, and not by banning Legacy. Announced through the Tips Out Discord: several Legacy perks will be heavily weakened for the tournament because they conflict with what the event is trying to measure. Which perks, and by how much, is not yet decided — and the organisers were explicit that it will not be a simple ban. The stated motive was to stop players farming Legacy instead of preparing their actual duel character.
If you are building a character around a specific Legacy perk, that is now a live risk: check the rules page again before check-in.
The gold problem the tournament inherited
Two forum threads — an EU one titled "The $50k Duel Tournament" and a US thread called "Gold buying rules" — argued that streamers were being handed large amounts of gold immediately after the announcement, and that this made the tournament unfair before a single duel was played.
Blizzard's community manager Kaivax answered in both threads on September 28, and the answer was broader than the tournament:
"Real money transactions (RMT) are not acceptable in World of Warcraft, and we're taking steps to address RMT in the WoW: Forever Beta, and of course, when WoW: Forever goes live and beyond. It's important to know that while we have always actioned RMT seller's accounts as quickly as possible, we will increasingly take action against buyers' accounts."
On September 30, Blizzard removed roughly 520 gold that level 1 characters had traded to the streamer Ziqo, leaving his mage with 9 silver, without banning him. We covered the timeline and Kaivax's wording in our dispatch on that enforcement action; the practical takeaway for entrants is that receiving gold from strangers is now explicitly a risk to your account, not just to someone else's.
The prizes, and why the numbers are provisional
The pool started at $50,000 on September 27. The next day, TimTheTatman added another $50,000, taking it to $100,000.
The published split — $25,000 to the champion plus the title "Death's Duelist," and $25,000 shared across nine classes at $2,777 each — is from the original $50,000 rules. As of the most recent check, the official rules page had not been updated to reflect the doubled pool. If the doubling keeps the same shape, as ForeverChanges reports, the champion takes $50,000 and the best player of each class takes $5,555. Treat those two figures as likely rather than confirmed.
Winners must send the organisers an invoice before being paid.
For context on the pedigree: Tips Out organised the Classic Duelers League and OTK's Hardcore Mak'gora in 2023, which drew more than 2,500 entrants. Esfand and Xaryu hosted that event too.
A checklist for the next thirteen days
- Confirm you can still create a Horde character on the PvP ruleset — check now, not on October 16.
- Create it with the surname
Foreverpvp, then register on Raider.IO before October 4, 11:00 a.m. PT. - Level to 30. The cap went live on October 1; there is no shortcut past it.
- Decide your Legacy spend with the September 30 nerf announcement in mind.
- Empty your bags of Magic Dust, protection potions and holiday items before check-in.
- Test your stream setup before the qualifiers — no VOD means no prize money.
- Re-read the rules page the week of the event. The organisers have changed them once already, and the prize split is still unresolved.
Sources and further reading
External references used to verify or expand this article.