CGS has updated details for adding World of Warcraft to the official game lineup. Each CGS team will expand to 12 players from the current rosters of 10 for the 2008 season. Additionally, the rule set for the tournament has undergone significant changes.

A CGS Press release explains the draft process,

"Blizzard has held open 2v2 qualifiers within its Arena system and has determined the top 16 two-person teams on the North American and European servers. CGS will be flying these teams to BlizzCon 2007, where they will compete live for a chance to be drafted onto CGS teams and win their share of a special $30,000 prize later this year.

After the BlizzCon CGS tournament crowns a 2v2 champion, the top 8 teams will qualify for a competition to be held in November at the CGS 2007 World Championship in Los Angeles, where the top team will win $30,000. These 8 teams will also be pre-qualified for the CGS 2008 draft. Blizzard will give them the opportunity to move onto a private realm and battle against challengers who want to join them at CGS. The 8 teams who perform the best against the top 8 teams from Blizzcon will be the 16 World of Warcraft duos to be drafted onto CGS teams at the official CGS 2008 Draft."

BlizzCon matches begin Friday August 3rd at 1:00 PM with the Europeans playing the first rounds. Four teams were unable to attend due to issues with travel, but the event will proceed as planned with the top 8 teams moving on to the CGS event in November. The seeding for bracket position has been done at random.

Tournament organizers have made some changes to the rule set used by CGS for the 2v2 event. Players will be using characters with preset gear - the exact same preset of gear that the WSVG tournament uses. This means players use premade characters, not their own personal character. With multiple leagues now employing it, the preset gear list has become almost an official standard for WoW Arena competitions.

Many teams will be unable to use the raid level Shadow Resist gear that was commonly seen as an answer to many Warlock/Healer combination teams dominating the US ladders. This is a great step for standardizing the format and removing the importance of PVE time investment for competitive PvPers.

You can read more about the World of Warcraft and CGS at their press release here.