Becoming the top arena team on your server, battlegroup or in the world takes time. Time and energy. It takes stamina and knowledge of your class that surpasses all others. It takes skill and effort. You have to be willing to play 100+ arena matches a week and you have to be able to take the losses you may suffer with a pinch of salt in order to keep up moral.

Well, you would think that wouldn't you?

I'd consider a successful arena team anyone with a rating of 1800+ and this should be a universal, but it is not. My own 5v5 team has a rating of 1675 currently and as we break into the high 1600's/ low 1700's, we will be hitting on the top spot on our server. Of course, there are underhanded methods that teams use to raise their rating beyond the 1800 threshold and I've discovered how the majority of arena teams do it. It isn't through skill that a lot of them make it up there. It's through an exploit - an exploit that can not be detected or, in fact, acted upon under any circumstances. In fact, it is so cunning that it doesn't even break the rules. That's right! A completely rule following way to get your arena rating from 1500 to 2000 with little to no effort and that isn't playing fair arena matches against other teams.

Teams have been doing it since season 1. Who had the idea? No idea to be honest. It just cropped up over night and allowed certain teams to go from nobodies to somebodies. I warn you now that this will cast doubt on teams like the HukHukHukHuks. I'm not saying they do it, but this is going to make you think about how exactly those teams got from being 1500 to 2000+. Some of them are genuinely skilled but this method isn't rule breaking and only takes another WoW Subscription and 5 other level 70s (excluding those in your team). In other words, each member of your team needs to have a level 70 on another account.

The Method

The method is simply, slightly costly, but well worth it if you are going to get yourself rash epics and possible contracts to play the game. Let's say you are in a 5v5 team that is doing average to good. You decide that you want to be the best on the server. Each member gets' another account, levels another character to 70 and then runs them through arena during the day to get the rating on the team high enough to award good rating gains. Then, you wait until early in the morning and simply log both sets of accounts (that of your main team and "alt" team) and queue them in the arena queue at the same time. You'll still have to face some random teams but if you time it well enough you will face your alt team, who can just stand there and die for you, awarding you the arena rating.

Now that might seem a little lengthy to you but look at it this way. If you grind your main arena team straight off and lose rating, it matters. It matters a lot. If you have an alt team that you are guaranteed a decent arena rating gain and if that team losses some rating, oh well! It doesn't matter because the toons don't matter.

This actually goes on by the way. There are teams out there who admit openly to this practice and whilst some of the top teams aren't going to openly say, "yeah, we cheat," I am pretty sure they have done it at one point or another. It's easy arena rating and it doesn't break the rules.

Now to the big question - Is this practice fair?

Well the rules say so. There is nothing stopping you from having multiple accounts and there is nothing stopping you from playing them at the same time and there is nothing stopping you from encountering them in arena. Nothing at all.

The player base however, sees things differently. It is unfair for the most part as it is a cop out. Just like RMT, some people can't afford it and also think it is game breaking. How could Blizzard allows a competitive e-sport be so easily exploited? We're talking about the company who knows Warlocks and warriors and druids are unbalanced in arena but doesn't care so it is no surprise that they don't care about this. After all, it is just a game and nothing more. It doesn't break the rules, therefore it is perfectly ok. It isn't hampering their profit (in fact, quite the opposite) so it is ok. The 3v3 e-sport ladder failed and the 2v2 is going to go soon as well. Eventually, the 5v5 ladder will also fail and Blizzard are probably working tremendously hard to stop that from happening but eventually, nobody will want to compete in a system that can so easily be taken advantage of.

The Arena system is a fun addition to a game that needs new things and quickly. It is fun but it is also supposed to be professional in the higher echelons and so you would think that Blizzard would find a way around this? Well, in truth and defence, they can't. IP logging won't work because of the fact that they are unreliable and if a separate account is used, there is no way to stop people from logging both at once. Of course, there could be a system whereby only one account under one name can be active at any one time but then this is impractical for other reasons.

Blizzards main focus at the moment is on security and content. They very rarely go back to revisit problems unless they are game breaking or player wide issues. This isn't and seeing as this, "exploit," doesn't effect other players game play, there is very little we can hope for Blizzard to do about it.