Eve Ascension 3 Press Release
The Eve Ascension Tournament for World of Warcraft Returns!
August 18th, 2023 - Team Liquid’s Eve Ascension tournament series is partnering once again with Liquid Women in Warcraft (LWiW), in collaboration with Raider.IO and presented by Alienware, to host a second dungeon-themed tournament in Q3 2023. The event strives to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts for gender minorities in the gaming space and beyond.
“We’re excited to hold another Eve Ascension event alongside Liquid Women in Warcraft and Raider.IO. Through Eve Ascension, we hope to continue to foster an inclusive environment within the World of Warcraft community for talented individuals to compete and grow. We are eagerly anticipating the impact we can achieve this year and in the coming future.” – Olivia Wong, Events Manager, Tournaments at Team Liquid
What is Eve Ascension?
Eve Ascension is a game-agnostic tournament series created by Team Liquid and proudly presented by Alienware. The Eve Ascension series aims to showcase women and gender minorities in gaming spaces; all players competing in Eve Ascension events identify as women or gender minorities, and at least 80% of on-air talent and behind-the-scenes staff are also women or gender minorities.
Within World of Warcraft, Eve Ascension is a Mythic+ tournament with qualifiers taking place on live servers, and a four-team Championship that will take place entirely on Tournament Realms – dedicated in-game servers provided by Blizzard Entertainment, where event organizers can specify rule sets and players can compete on an even playing field.
The inaugural Eve Ascension x LWiW tournament in World of Warcraft not only featured teams comprised entirely of women and gender minorities, but also the majority of talent and support staff. This first tournament sparked a divisive but important dialogue about the treatment of gender minority players in gaming communities, and even inspired big names in the competitive World of Warcraft scene to voice their support. Discussing the prevailing attitudes and behaviors towards gender minorities in the Warcraft community is an important step towards equity in competitive WoW.
Eve Ascension is an Alienware x Team Liquid initiative. Alienware and Team Liquid are committed to bringing positive change in gaming communities dealing with toxicity and harassment, especially to historically marginalized groups. Together, Alienware and Team Liquid intend to cultivate inclusion and inspire equity and respect.
When is Eve Ascension?
The Eve Ascension Championship, a one-day live broadcast event, will take place on September 30th, 2023 on the Team Liquid Twitch Channel. The show will begin at 9am PDT and will end at 4 PM PDT, with 6 hours of live gameplay. Qualifiers will be open Tuesday, August 29th to Thursday, September 14th 2023, with qualified teams announced on Friday, September 22nd.
Eve Ascension Tournament Format:
Qualifiers for Eve Ascension will take place on the LIVE World of Warcraft servers. Teams will register and sign-up via Raider.IO for their chance to qualify for the Championship. Over a two-week period, teams will attempt to earn as much Mythic+ Rating as possible. The 4 teams with the highest Score at the end of the qualifiers will earn an invite to the Eve Ascension Championship!
The Eve Ascension Mythic+ Championship will follow the traditional dungeon-climbing format popularized by Blizzard’s The Great Push tournament. Teams will have 6 hours to complete the highest keystone dungeons possible, with dungeon affixes pre-set by tournament organizers. At the end of the allotted competition period, teams will be scored on their combined completed keystone levels across all dungeons.
The teams will have the opportunity to win up to five $100 bounties for completing extra challenges during their timed runs, in addition to a standard prize pool.
The Qualifiers will take place on LIVE World of Warcraft servers on the following dates for each region, based on regional server resets:
Americas & Oceania: August 29th - September 12th
Europe: August 30th - September 13th
Korea / Taiwan: August 31st - September 14th
Interested players can learn more about the event, the registration process, and eligibility requirements at Raider.IO and in the Eve Ascension Discord server. To register, the team captain will need to visit the signup page on Raider.IO. Team registration will open August 18th at 8 am PDT and close with the last day of qualifiers, September 14th at 11:59 pm PDT.
The Sponsors:
An event such as the LWiW x Eve Ascension Mythic+ Tournament would not exist were it not for the generosity and support of our amazing sponsors and partners.
Presenting Sponsor: Alienware
Eve Ascension is proudly presented by Alienware. Alienware and Team Liquid are working to create opportunities for future generations to bring about change in gaming communities dealing with toxicity and harassment, especially to women and historically marginalized groups.
The organizers would also like to thank both Twitch and Blizzard Entertainment for their continued support.
About Team Liquid / Liquid MMO
Team Liquid was founded in 2000 in the Netherlands and has evolved into one of the leading international multigame esports teams with training centers in Utrecht, the Netherlands, São Paulo, Brazil and Los Angeles, California. Team Liquid has over 120 athletes competing across 17 distinct games, including all major esports titles, such as VALORANT, Rocket League, DOTA 2, League of Legends, CS:GO, Fortnite, Rainbow 6: Siege, and more. Led by Co-CEOs Steve Arhancet and Victor Goossens, Team Liquid is one of the most successful esports teams in the Western market in terms of competitive achievement and fan engagement across multiple sports.
In addition to the premier esports team franchise, Liquid Enterprises operates various business units created to complement its esports athletic brand. This includes influencer management agency Liquid Media, esports wikipedia Liquipedia, and 1UP Studios, the full service production company known for its high-quality esports documentary style filmmaking, and creative commercial content.
In September 2016, controlling interest in Team Liquid was purchased by esports ownership group, aXiomatic. aXiomatic leadership includes Co-Executive Chairmen Peter Guber, Ted Leonsis, Jeff Vinik and Bruce Karsh who together represent an unparalleled team of sports, technology, entertainment and investment industry titans
In early 2022, Team Liquid formed Liquid MMO, a new branch of the organization with a focus on the genre’s esports competitions. Team Liquid founded Liquid MMO by signing the premier World of Warcraft Guild Limit, renaming it Liquid Guild. Team Liquid is also a passionate supporter of DEIBAJ initiatives within the gaming industry, and proudly announced the launch of Liquid Women in Warcraft, an initiative tackling misogyny in World of Warcraft, during last year’s Mythic+ Charity Pro-Am. LWIW continues to grow and is paving a pathway for women and gender minorities in WoW.
About Liquid Women in Warcraft:
First opened to the public in 2022, Liquid Women in Warcraft is an initiative striving to empower, encourage, educate and elevate gender minorities to the same positions of authority, respect, and visibility as their male counterparts. The LWiW community provides a network through which women, non-binary persons, and those belonging to other gender minorities can seek like-minded allies and take part in numerous educational opportunities with experts and professionals from all aspects of World of Warcraft.
About Raider.IO:
Raider.IO is the premiere platform for PVE players in World of Warcraft, providing progression tracking, character and guild information, support and hosting of community events, as well as high quality news and content for all things Mythic+ and Raiding. Jah Raphael helms a small team of passionate writers, developers, and analysts, all of whom are active WoW players and community members. Raider.IO is a proudly black-owned business where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are core values. Since its launch in 2017, Raider.IO has tracked hundreds of millions of hours of Mythic+ dungeons, has provided global coverage and logistical support for the Race to World First, and has worked directly with the Blizzard Esports team on all MDI competitions. A true community hub, Raider.IO is a household name for World of Warcraft PVE players.
