Content and media company OTK Media has announced a new World of Warcraft duelling tournament, called the OTK/Starforge Hardcore Mak’Gora.

The open tournament will see players create new characters in World of Warcraft Classic’s Hardcore mode, level up to the maximum level and then compete in 1v1 duels — where the loser’s character will be deleted. The tournament will have a prize pool of $100,000 (~£82,250).

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The tournament is co-organised by content group and media company OTK Media and its custom PC builder Starforge Systems, while being supported by game developer Blizzard Entertainment.

Although player versus player tournaments in World of Warcraft (WoW) have been around for almost two decades, the new tournament focuses on hardcore servers, a twist on the familiar MMORPG formula.

In ‘hardcore’ WoW servers, player characters cannot be resurrected once killed, adding high stakes to gameplay because dying in-game means deleting the character. Unofficial hardcore servers have been around for a long time, but game developer Blizzard recently included official Hardcore servers.

The OTK-organised event will have players create all-new characters on the Horde side, and then level up to 60 (the max level in WoW Classic), gear them up. Characters are to be created on October 6th, and the levelling stage will end on October 30th.

After that, all players will enter a bracket and fight in all-or-nothing 1v1 duels for the majority of the main prize pool of $100,000.

The Mak’gora name comes from Warcraft lore, and is a fight to the death, with the losing player losing its character with no second chances. This makes for thrilling competition, since battles usually do not last long and end with just one player continuing to play on the server.

The inclusion of official Hardcore servers to Classic WoW gave a breath of new life to the MMORPG, with players praising the high stakes and competitiveness of the newly-official game mode.

WoW Classic is a standalone version of the original base World of Warcraft game prior to the additoin of any expansions.