Blizzard Watch Weekly: mm mm good

The highlight of my week has been the Race to World First, not because I care about cutting edge raiding, but because Chef Heidi (who you might remember as the chef for the Philly Fusion) is allowing us behind the scenes into her kitchen on Twitch every day of the race. She’s cooking for Team Liquid, but many of the things she’s been making has also ended up on my grocery list for next week. Today they’re having a burger bar for lunch, and orange chicken with broccoli for dinner, and I have never been more jealous of pro gamers.

Let’s see what happened this week, and what we have to look forward to next week, and some stuff you may have missed.

What happened this week?

• Season 2 of The War Within began
• Steam Visual Novel Fest ends March 10
• This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl: Just Macaws (Wild, Provided)
• Active Twitch Drop campaigns
• Epic Games Store free game of the week: Them’s Fightin Herds

We promise we’re tracking the actual Race to World First in addition to the grub. It’s just, they had a mac and cheese bar, man. If you don’t know where or how to watch the raid, we have a primer for how to watch the Race to World First.

If you started off season 2 in the Liberation of Undermine raid, don’t forget the most important thing about raiding: your outfit. We put together some seriously snazzy transmog options for taking it to the man. Or goblin, whichever. Speaking of taking down bosses, we have a brief guide to doing just that, for all the bosses in Liberation of Undermine. If you spent too long designing your transmog and not enough upgrading your gear, we have a guide to gearing up ASAP so your raid group doesn’t hate you.

For something completely different, there are a ton of Visual Novels the staff love at a deep discount on Steam through March 10. We also have our usual slate of new (or just plain good) games worth a look this weekend.

We celebrated Mardi Gras this year with Hazel the adorable opossum and a tiny king cake.

What’s Happening Next Week (and beyond)

• Kalimdor Cup ends March 10
• Diablo 4 Gilded Goblin event ends March 11
• Diablo 4 Season 8 PTR March 11 – 18
• Phase 3 of WoW Classic Anniversary realms goes live March 20
• Journey to the Emerald Dream Hearthstone expansion releases March 25

Blizzard announced that there will be a phase 8 to Season of Discovery at some point in the future, and they’re planning on leaving those servers up (in contrast to the Season of Mastery, which was rolled into regular servers) but the details are sketchy. This is perhaps to be expected, since the source for this is a YouTube comment by a Blizzard employee. It has been verified as accurate, but not exactly the most exhaustive source.

The dates for the next season’s Diablo 4 PTR were released during today’s campfire chat, and giving the newly adjusted Torments a whirl before you’re on live servers might be a good idea also based on that campfire chat.

The second update to the Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds expansion, called Repentance, is going live March 11.

This week’s podcasts

• Blizzard Watch Podcast: Racing our way to Season 2 of The War Within
• Lore Watch Podcast: What you need to know about Paladins, Templars, and Crusaders in Diablo

This week’s Blizzard Watch Podcast mainly dealt with season 2 of The War Within, and how we’re liking Undermine so far. We are adamantly pro-jazz, for the record. We’re also pro-Visual Novel. In terms of Diablo events, it’s a mixed bag, because they’re too short, but also cool.

Lore Watch this week comes from the archives. We’re discussing the interconnected lore of Paladins, Templars, and Crusaders in Diablo.