http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1111831A major focus of this Content Update is to overhaul Path of Exile's PvP systems and introduce formal competitive events. As we've learned from our successful racing scene, having prizes and news coverage of competitive play is critical. In addition to introducing seasons of tournaments, we've performed a lot of PvP-specific rebalancing that doesn't affect the regular game. New UI improvements include an Events Screen that shows upcoming events (including PvP tournaments) in the game client.
We're introducing several different types of PvP tournaments that are scheduled at specific times.
Free-for-all tournaments take place in the Sarn Arena. They're a massive brawl where you get a point per player kill. If you die, you're sent to a new arena to continue the massacre.
Blitz tournaments are a series of rapid-fire duels where you're quickly matched against a new opponent as soon as your last round finishes. Your goal is to get as many victories as possible within the time limit.
Swiss tournaments are highly competitive tournaments that match players with similar records against each other. They're run in a regimented series of matches, each one a best-of-seven and provide the most competitive structure of the three tournaments on offer.
Competing in tournaments earns you points towards tiers of Alternate Art Unique Item prizes.
PvP Tournaments are grouped into Seasons that consist of a month of themed events. Weekdays contain free-for-all and blitz events, while the weekends have larger tournaments with Swiss pairings and awesome prizes from our sponsors.
Top players will be invited to a special event at the end of the season so that they can battle for more prestige and prizes.
PvP-Only Characters
Dueling with level 28 characters is very popular within our community - so much so that we're running it as the primary event type in the first PvP season. Because the fun of PvP is in creating builds, perfecting your items and destroying your opponents, we're adding an option to create blank level 28 characters that are only able to play in PvP matches.
These PvP-only characters won't impact regular gameplay, but will allow you to shortcut the process of trying out level 28 PvP builds and creating characters for tournaments. You'll still need to acquire their equipment in the core PvE game.