A ROUGH draft of the "official" tournament rules (borrowed mostly from the 2010 BlizzCon Tournament):
Arena Tournament rules
1. The Championship Bracket is a Best of 5 Game Match, Double Elimination Bracket.
2. After losing a Match, Teams will fall into the Losers Bracket.
3. A Match loss in the Losers Bracket will result in elimination from the Event.
4. Teams may consist of 3 or 4 Players.
5. Teams must submit their Roster of Players/Characters to the Referee prior to the start of Games 1, 3, and 5
6. Before Games 3 and 5, Teams will be given 5 minutes to change Players, Characters, Settings, redistribute Talent Points.
7. Teams will be seeded randomly.
8. All Gear will be standard Season 4 Arena Gear, with the exception of trinkets. (any PvP or PvE trinkets may be used)
9. Any and all gems and enchants will be allowed. All profession-based gear enhancements will also be allowed.
10. Losers of each match will be able to choose a map that has not already been played. Nagrand will always be chosen first.
11. No map may be played more than one time in a Best of 5 Game Match.
12. No map may be played more than two times in a Best of 11 Game Match.
13. If Teams meet for a 2nd time in the Championship Bracket, their Match will expand to a Best of 11, include the previous Match, and pick up where that Match left off. For example, if Team A beat Team B 3 Games to 0 in the Winners Bracket, the Best of 11 will resume with Game 4 and Team A leading 3 Games to 0. Before Games 7, 9, and 11, Teams will be given 5 minutes to change Players, Characters, Settings, and redistribute Talent Points.
14. If the Teams meeting in the Finals have not yet faced each other in the Championship Bracket and the Team coming from the Losers Bracket wins a Match, another Match must be played to break the tie since both Teams would only have one Match loss.
15. Any player experiencing technical difficulties (i.e., internet disconnect, keyboard or mouse malfunction, monitor malfunction, etc.) will be given no more than 15 minutes to resolve the issue. If, at that point, the player has not resolved the issue, and there is not a 4th player registered on the team that can take over, that team will be disqualified from the tournament. If the issue is resolved, the current disrupted match will be reset unless one team had 2 more living characters than the opposing team. More than 1 disruption per player and/or more than 3 disruptions per team will result in the team being disqualified from the tournament.
16. There is a 20 minute time limit in place for each arena tournament match. Should the 20 minute match time limit be reached and there is no clear winner, the same two teams will compete in a tie-breaker match on a randomly selected map. If a tie-breaker match reaches the 20 minute match time limit without a clear winner, the winner will be determined by the tournament sponsor based on which team did the most damage to its opponent during the initial match.
All rules are enforced based on the judgement of the Admins and Commentators, both of which hold
the right to replay a specific match or disqualify a team from the tournament.
