Upper Deck has announced that the 2009 World Championships for both the WoW Trading Card Game and Miniatures games will be taking place in a public event this weekend, October 9-11, 2009, in Austin, Texas. They'll be at the Austin Convention Center, and of course there will be the world championship tournaments for both games, offering up to $300,000 in cash and prizes total, including $50,000 for the winner of the World Championships for the TCG, including a Spectral Tiger Loot card as well as the chance to get immortalized in a future card release.

And even if you're not a championship player, you can still go see the games, and even play in some of your own -- they'll have tournaments and events for players of all levels all weekend long, some with pretty cool prizes. And you can win just by walking in the door, as they'll be giving away door prizes all weekend as well. The event is free -- it kicks off Thursday morning, and goes all the way until Sunday night (you can download schedules for both games over on the website). Should be fun -- if you go, make sure to take some pictures and let us know what you think.

Good evening, WoW.com! Tonight we have a surprise giveaway. Right in front of me are three Slashdance loot codes, courtesy of Upper Deck. Each code grants you 100 Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.s which you can use to get your raid burning up the dance floor! Or the auction house, or the Horde/Alliance tunnels before Alterac Valley starts, or... you know, wherever it would be most obnoxious. Do you want one of them? All you need to do is leave a comment to this post before 11:59 PM EDT this evening, which is a little less than five hours from now.

When the clock strikes midnight tonight, I'll be turning off comments on this post and randomly selecting three winners. You may only enter tonight's giveaway once. We have ways of finding out if you've commented multiple times, so don't hose yourself out of a loot code. Comment with a valid email address, because we'll be using that to send you your loot code.

If you don't win one tonight, don't worry! Upper Deck was kind enough to give us a whole load of loot, so we'll be giving them away pretty often until we've bled ourselves dry.

Update: Congratulations to our winners InsiderFan, Jon B., and Friend. They're our winners this evening! I'll be contacting all three of you via email shortly. Again, if you didn't win tonight, don't worry. We'll be giving away many, many more of these in the near future. Just keep an eye on the site.

One of the things I got to do at BlizzCon 2009 that ended up being a whole lot of fun was sit down and play a few rounds of the World of Warcraft TCG at the Upper Deck Booth. I actually plan to write a bit more on that later, but for now, my main thought on it was that it was pretty fun. As a former Magic: The Gathering Player way back in the early 3rd edition days, I've always held a soft spot in my heart for a good solid card game, and I've been meaning for the longest time to check out the TCG as something more than a silly thing that refuses to give me a mount.

I have to say, if anything, that I probably enjoyed it too much. Not only did I catch onto the rules pretty quickly, but I was transported back to the old magic days, and I'm halfway tempted now to perfect a good solid deck and go out to my local gaming store in a couple weekends to see if anyone else plays. On the other hand, I'm trying to avoid that temptation, because I just know it'll eat up my life like Magic did back in the day.

Ahh the smell of fresh loot in the air, it must be summer. Well, fans of loot cards and the official Trading Card Game, I bet you have your calendar marked. Tomorrow sees the release of the latest - and possibly greatest - TCG expansion Fields of Honor. Yes, you too could have your very own El Pollo Grande, the greatest mount in the entire history of Azeroth. We've mentioned this thing was rarer than a spectral tiger's tooth, right? Indeed our very own Turpster has been raving about his (insert slightly rude giant chicken joke here) all week.

The best part that is the cards were activated in an earlier patch so you can use them as soon as you find one. No more waiting for 3.1.x or even 3.2. Just to recap, the Fields of Honor loot consists of El Pollo Grande, the Ogre Pinata and the groovy Path of Cenarius. You can also take a peek at Upper Deck's loot card preview page for some really cool screenshots.

But here's the best part. After the success of our last EU giveaway, Upper Deck International here in the UK have very kindly given us a set of shiny European loot cards. Isn't that nice of them? We certainly think so! We're going to give them away during this week's maintenance so check back then.

Quite a show on our podcast last weekend -- while, despite lots of pre-show tweaking, I still wasn't able to get audio set up correctly, we were still able to get all our guests on. Both Lesley Smith and Chase Christian joined us to talk about all of the patch 3.2 changes we've heard about on the coming PTR, including Chase's thoughts on Rogues getting Axes, what the Coliseum will be like and the changes to Emblems in raids and Heroic instances. We also talked for just a bit about the Midsummer Fire Festival, which is on the realms right now. Turpster will be doing it, as he's still in the chase for the holiday achievements, but the rest of us are pretty meh.

And we talked about our plans for BlizzCon (live streaming ahoy!), and even gave away some loot codes. The contest from during the show is over and done with (so please don't bother emailing us about Yogg Saron any more), but just so you weekly listeners aren't out in the cold, we'll do this: two random commenters on this post before Wednesday the 24th at midnight will win a loot card code each. That's right: comment on this post (using a real email) before Wednesday at midnight and you'll have a chance to win a Footsteps of Illidan loot card of your own, thanks to our friends at WoWTCGLoot.com.

Enjoy the show, and we'll see you next week.

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We've been giving a lot of loot card codes away on our Twitter account lately, but the nice folks over at WoWTCGLoot.com didn't think that was enough. They want all of our readers to have a chance at some awesome ingame stuff for free, so here you go: we're giving away not two, not four, but eight different loot card codes today.

What's up for grabs, you ask? We've got an Epic Purple Shirt that'll let you "be the center of attention," two of the very popular Sandbox Tiger codes (I just rode on one the other day, and it was so much fun my character was throwing their hands in the air), and five different P.A.R.T.Y. grenades, sure to blow up a party no matter where you are. To win, just leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite ingame item of all time, loot card or otherwise. You may only enter once, and we'll close the comments 24 hours from now (at 5pm Eastern on May 14th), choose eight random winners, and email the codes out to them, so use a real email address when you comment. Codes work in either the US or EU realms.

And while you're waiting to win, don't forget to head on over to WoWTCGLoot.com for pages and pages of great info about all of the loot cards available, including fact sheets and FAQ pages about each card, and even price trackers on eBay so you can get the card you want for less money than you thought. They're also giving away cards on their site -- you can hit up their chatbox page to talk with other readers and maybe even win some more cards. They're an awesome resource for everything you need to know about TCG cards, and as always, we are indebited to them for helping us run contests like this. Good luck to everyone!

Last week, we told you all about the giant chicken known as El Pollo Grande (now reincarnated as a mount). His presence was revealed thanks to a little datamining by MMO Champion's Boubouille. This giant chicken is set to be the new, rarer than hen's teeth, mount in the next set of loot cards in the TCG expansion Fields of Honor. Indeed a spokesperson at Upper Deck recently called this card 'the new Spectral Tiger' and it's got an awful lot of fans excited.

Well today the artwork for the new loot cards mysteriously appeared on the brand new Flickr account (which has since been deleted) of a user called wownudnik. We have no idea who this chap is but the artwork is amazing and certainly looks legit, even if Upper Deck have not officially confirmed anything. However the artwork has confirmed something we and Boubouille were guessing about; the Path of Cenarius card is indeed like Path of Illidan but with flowers. There's also an ogre pinata and, of course, El Pollo Grande, himself in what has to be one of the best pieces of TCG artwork yet. Although I was kind of hoping for a Tauren to be riding that chicken rather than a Night Elf.

Fields of Honor is due out on June 30th.

Upper Deck has released the first expansion to the WoW minis game, called Spoils of War. The new set of figures introduces legendary lore figures like Jaina and Kael'thas into the mix, and they can now jump onto the gameboard with player characters and duke it out in the streamlined Arena-style turn-based battles. The new set also contains Action Bar cards, which can modify your characters and party's abilities before a battle (like casting a Wrath of Air totem to modify all of your team's die rolls). And finally, the new expansion also brings items into the mix, so there's one more medium in which you can wield Sulfuras, the Hand of Ragnaros. (And no, unfortunately, real life isn't one... yet.)

The new set is available in booster packs at a hobby and collectible store near you -- the MSRP is about $14.99, but they'll probably be around for cheaper than that eventually, if they're not already. If you're a regular player of the minis game, it sounds like it'll be a must-have addition, and if you've never picked it up before, maybe the prospect of playing some of the more famous lore figures will get you interested.

Everyone has a list of WoW loot they must own. For some it's Frostmourne. For others it's the prestige of having all of the Limited Editions and in-game pets. Well, WoW packrats, pay attention! BlizzPlanet is reporting that the Peninsula Education Foundation is auctioning off $3,500 worth of precious Blizzard loot.

The auction is being held online between 17th-27th April and all proceeds are going to the Peninsula Education Foundation in order to support all schools in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. There are lots of different items on auction but Blizzard fans will be wanting to pay special attention to the World of Warcraft basket which has a starting bid of $1,100 and includes:

• World of Warcraft: Collector's Edition (autographed by the development team)
• World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Collector's Edition (autographed by the development team)
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition (autographed by the development team)
• Spectral Tiger Mount Loot Card (Upper Deck)
• World of Warcraft - one year free gift card
• Limited Edition Arthas Helm (Sideshow Collectibles)
• Limited Edition Cinematic Art of WotLK book
• The Music of Blizzard (Echoes of War), deluxe Eminence CD set
• 2008 BlizzCon exclusive World of Warcraft Hardback comic collection
• Deluxe edition, World of Warcraft miniatures Game, Core Set
• Talking Murloc Plush Toy
• Vindicator Maraad Deluxe collectors action figure

The auction still has five days left, so if you really, really feel the need to get yourself some shiny loot while helping a good cause, check out the World of Warcraft basket page.

Upper Deck has officially released the latest expansion in the WoW Trading Card Game -- the Blood of Gladiators is the game's eighth expansion set (can you believe this game has been around for three years already?), and features new PvP action, including a new Duel Faction Ally card and a new Arena setting in the Gurubashi Arena. There are three new characters in the game as well, coming straight from the pages of the World of Warcraft comic, with art by none other than Jim Lee. And of course it's got the loot cards we talked about earlier, including the Foam Swords rack and the Sandbox Tiger. Can't wait to see those in the game.

Booster packs from the set run about $4 in most places, though demand for the game can actually drive the prices up at retail if store owners feel they're running out too fast. Seems like, at this point, the WoW TCG has its fans, and the online game does as well, and sometimes the two are not the same people. Anyone been waiting for this release, or, eight times in, is yet another expansion set actually business as usual in the collectible card game?

Our friends over at WoWTCGLoot have posted what they believe are the next three loot cards coming out in the "Blood of Gladiators" expansion of the card game.

• A Sandbox Tiger, we're told, will be a cooldown-based location toy like the D.I.S.C.O. ball, and will allow you to ride a spectral tiger in place, like a rocking horse.
• An Epic Purple Shirt will not only look epic, but should allow you to do a special emote (probably /flex) that will make you "the center of attention."
• And perhaps more exciting, a Foam Swords Rack will let players around you grab foam swords and swordfight to the finish, complete with a declared winner.

Very cool. The first time we'll see these in stores will likely be the upcoming preview of the new expansion, taking place on the weekend of March 7th. Since these likely came from information found in the PTR, they are, of course, subject to change. Upper Deck will likely share a few screenshots and some more information on these soon, and when they do, we'll let you know.

We're finishing off our holiday week of giveaways with a bang. Today, not only have we got the prize we've given away every day this week (two pet biscuits and four dance grenades, courtesy of WoWTCGLoot.com), but we've got an extra special code to toss in to a seventh lucky winner: a D.I.S.C.O. ball, guaranteed to make Ironforge's bank, or the arena starting area, or your local raid, or wherever else you congregate in game, a palace of dancing mania.

To enter, just comment on this post within the next 24 hours, and please use a real email so we can contact all of the winners when we randomly choose them. These codes are valid in the US or EU, so you're eligible to win as long as your characters are on one of those realms (actually, you're eligible to win anyway, but since all you get is the code, it's pretty useless if you don't have a character to use it).

In fact, here's hoping you had a happy holiday week. Hopefully the family didn't get to you too much, and hopefully you got what you wanted (or at least the gift receipts for the things you didn't). Good luck to everyone, and thanks for entering these all week.

'Twas the day before Christmas
And all through the blog,
Commenters were commenting,
Even Badger and Zugzog.

When up from WoWTCGLoot.com
Arose such a clatter:
It was a contest for six loot cards
You can win with just chatter.

There's four grenades to make you dance
Like a bowl full of jelly,
And two pet biscuits for growing pets
(Though they'll still be quite smelly).

Yes, comment on this post today
To be one of six winners,
Codes work in the US or EU,
So it's super easy, even for beginners.

Good luck and don't forget
to come back to the site,
Merry Christmas to all,
And to all a good night!