Season five has been underway for a while now. After weeks of endless whining, worrying and complaining, the balance – though not perfect – seems to have settled down somewhat. At the time I’m writing this, the top ten players on SK100 only includes one duplicate class: a pair of hunters at 6th and 7th.

Looking, more importantly, at the 3v3 bracket, the top ten is home to ten completely different setups. The only real worry, statistically, is that eight of those teams feature paladins.

But in this apparently (!) balanced scenario in which we live, there are still qualms.

Maybe it’s just my realm, but arena doesn’t seem very interesting this season. Admittedly I’m not in one of the best battlegroups around, but even so, it seems strangely quiet on the arena front. Remember season four, and how it felt like nobody really cared? That’s how it feels on Lightning’s Blade right now. Is it the same with you guys? I’m genuinely interested.

Bleak

All this blog-style drivel does have a point though. Since the last EM tournament back in October there has been nothing at all for arena fans to really get excited about. Of the two new arenas, one of them is pretty good (Dalaran) but the other is god awful. Deathknights are very strong, but seem very much like an equivalent to the season three warrior; backed-up by a healer they feel almost invincible.

But the lack of enthusiasm can’t be put down simply to hit-and-miss maps. The issue is indicative of something else, something far more problematic for WoW fans.

When ESL picked WoW as its flagship title for Extreme Masters III, the arena scene was at its highest ebb. With MLG running alongside it and a couple of summer tournaments from Blizzard, WoW fans were spoilt for choice.

But since Tradechat Allstars’ shock win in Philadelphia, it’s been a fairly bleak winter. With MLG yet to announce its plans for WoW in 2009, March’s global finals seem a long, long way away. Indeed, even our beloved pairing of 2GD and Zalmah are moonlighting in CS and WC3 coverage nowadays.

The good news, however, is that a little birdy tells me WoW will be a staple of the PC circuit again this year. That's something more to look forward to.

Seasons

Over the years I’ve heard various theories about ‘seasons’ in esports. At first glance, there isn’t an obvious august-may pattern like there is in football or rugby. This is due to the in-cohesive nature of the tournament organizers and the fact that there are so many different ones.

But really, there is an off-season for all games and they often resemble more traditional sports. The Christmas period in Warcraft III is very similar to the January transfer window in football: players come, players leave, contracts are renewed or declined. In WoW, it would seem that the early part of the year is very much a winter break. So despite ‘season five’ being in full swing, that very phrase is rather misleading, at least from an esports point of view.

Future

As WoW moves deeper into professional gaming, the regular online arena play becomes more and more like public Counter-strike or Battle.net: it’s fun, you try hard, and the practice is useful, but it isn’t really important. What is important, as the saying goes, is to do it on LAN.

2009 will probably be the biggest year in esports’ short history. If we as a community can survive the ongoing financial problems, we will be much the stronger for it. For WoW, though, it is even more of a make-or-break year. Financial downturn or not, WoW’s true acceptance into the esports scene will be confirmed or denied in 2009.

So if you’re like me, and feeling a bit apathetic about WoW right now, don’t worry. Think of the next few weeks as the players’ summer holidays, only in winter. The season starts in earnest on the third of March and there’ll even be a bunch of new signings to whet the appetite in the mean time. Roll on Extreme Masters, the summer starts here!

The world's first and only weekly esports column returns next Tuesday.