Greetings, Tyrians!

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ will bring a number of new Player vs. Player reward tracks, along with some exciting updates to both current and future reward tracks. Let’s take a look!

Mist Champion Reward Tracks: Me and My Mini MC

In previous blog posts—and over the course of several beta weekends and playtests—we introduced you to Stronghold, our new PvP game mode in which you hire troops to help you storm your enemy’s stronghold and defeat their lord. Along with Stronghold, we introduced Mist Champions, who are powerful allies in your struggle to defeat your foes. Now we want to give you a little more info about Mist Champion reward tracks.

To unlock a Mist Champion reward track, simply open the Mist Champions tab in the PvP Build panel and right-click on the Mist Champion of your choice. Just like obtaining build items in PvP, unlocking Mist Champions requires a small gold fee. Grymm Svaard’s reward track will be available for unlock by everyone. Nika and all future Mist Champion reward tracks will require Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Turai Ossa will be available for immediate use by everyone and will not have an associated reward track.

As a fun bonus for unlocking Mist Champions through these reward tracks, players will also have the opportunity to complete a second reward track to earn that Mist Champion’s miniature. Going forward, completion of any new Mist Champion reward track will also unlock bonus tracks for acquiring their miniature versions.

Rank Reward Tracks: A New Dragon Deserves a New Dragon Finisher

In addition to Mist Champion rewards tracks, Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns will bring a new series of reward tracks that unlock based on your rank in PvP. These reward tracks give you an alternate version of your rank finisher, themed for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Every player who owns the expansion will start with the new Jungle Rabbit reward track. As you finish each rank reward track, the subsequent tracks will unlock until you reach your current rank, all the way up to Dragon. And speaking of dragons, the Jungle Dragon Finisher is an entirely new finisher made especially for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns!

Shards of Glory and Black Lion Chest Keys

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns will introduce Shards of Glory, a new tradable crafting material obtained through PvP. Because Shards of Glory are going to be a part of legendary crafting—which you’ll learn more about in the coming week—we’re updating all reward tracks with them. To accommodate this change, we’re replacing two of the four transmutation stones on each reward track with Shards of Glory.

Finally, while there are several opportunities to earn Black Lion Chest Keys via your personal story, there hasn’t been a way for players who choose to spend their time in PvP to earn them. I’m super excited to let you know that we’re going to start incorporating Black Lion Chest Keys into some of our new one-shot reward tracks. This will include all of the upcoming Mist Champion reward tracks and all of the rank reward tracks mentioned above!

With Mist Champions, new miniatures, new finishers, legendary materials, Black Lion Chest Keys, and a whole new Jungle Dragon Finisher, there are a ton of exciting new rewards to look forward to in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns PvP! We can’t wait for you to join us in advancing our reward tracks with the lamentations of our defeated foes!

See you on the battlefield!