Yes, it's that time of year again -- the lights are up around town, the weather is cold and snowy, and you've got a long list of nice (and maybe even some naughty) people who will need gifts this year. But what will you get? If anyone on your list is a Warcraft player, worry not: WoW Insider has compiled a list of ten Nintendo Sixtyfoooooooour-level gifts for the Warcraft player in your life, five out-of-game and five in-game.

Whether they're level 10 or level 80, odds are that they'll love any of this stuff, and whether you've got just a little bit of time and/or money to put in or want no expense spared, there's something on this list for you. Click into the gallery below to check out all of the gifts, and be sure to have a happy holiday season -- here's hoping there will be a little something more exciting than coal in that stocking!

Looking for non-Warcraft related gamer gifts? Joystiq has up-to-the-minute news on the best holiday deals and tips around for Holidaze 2008. And our friends at Big Download have a nice set of guides up as well, featuring anything and everything you might need for a PC gamer.



Winter's Veil is almost here. Watch the 12 Days again, wonder what might be new this year, or settle down with some cocoa and some tasty... bark?

Blizzplanet's got the news that Upper Deck is offering a break on shipping in the next 24 hours, so if you've been thinking of picking up any WoW TCG-related items for a friend, now's the time to do it.

It's a pretty terrible deal though -- you've got to order $50 worth of stuff to get the free shipping, and at Upper Deck's official prices, you're probably just better running out to a hobby store and picking the things up yourself. But who knows. Maybe there's one of you in Alaska who have wanted to buy tons of stuff from UDE without paying shipping, but don't have a hobby store for miles around -- if so, you're in luck.

The sale inexplicably ends on November 21st, which by my calculations is tomorrow, so get your order in fast. But seriously, someone needs to teach Upper Deck how to have a holiday sale -- who buys all their gifts by Thanksgiving? Maybe we'll see a better sale on Black Friday.

Here is one of two WoW TCG loot cards we are giving away today as part of our Countdown to Wrath celebration. When redeemed in-game, it grants one character glowing footprints just like the Betrayer of Azeroth.

To enter, leave a comment on this post before Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 12pm ET (noon). No age or location restrictions on this giveaway. One winner will be chosen randomly and will receive a "Footprints of Illidan" loot card. Anyone can enter!

We have one more giveaway going live later today and more this week where you may have a chance to win a Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition box, a 60-day game card or a complete BlizzCon Loot bag.

EDIT: Giveaway closed to further entries. We'll be contacting the winner soon. Good luck to all who entered. Be on the lookout for more contests every day until Wrath launch!

We were lucky enough to try out the WoW Minis game at BlizzCon, and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I've never been much into collecting (I used to play CCGs back when I was a kid, and when, at one point, I spent half my allowance on one pack of cards that didn't have any new ones, I pretty much decided it was over), but the game itself is pretty fun, kind of a mix between an arena match and a turn-based battle. I'd need someone to play with, I think, but if I could convince a friend to sit down and be nerdy with me, I could see getting into it.

If you haven't gotten a chance to see the game in action yet, you're in luck. Upper Deck tells us that they've passed out free starter kits to more than 1,500 hobby stores around the country (they didn't provide a list, but if the previous TCG events went down at a store near you, odds are the minis kits will be there as well), so if you have some free time this weekend, stop in and ask if you can see the game and how it works.

The game itself launches on November 11th, so if you enjoy playing the game at the store this weekend, you'll be able to pick up a starter set and booster packs then.

The WoW TCG World Championships wrapped up this weekend, and an American player named Jim Fleckenstein emerged the winner. The World Champs took place in Paris, and there was a fun twist -- apparently last year, a French player won on American soil, and next year, the tournament is going to take place in Austin, Texas, so there's a rivalry building.

The WoW TCG site has lots more, including play-by-plays of all the matches if you're interested in how the top players play the game (Jim won with a Shaman -- SHAMAN POWER!), and they've even got video of all the folks throwing down to win the crazy prizes. Looks like lots of fun in Paris for players of the TCG.

The 2009 season kicks off with the end of these world champs -- the next event will be a Darkmoon Faire event in Anaheim, CA on November 9th (right before the Wrath release), and of course the Drums of War expansion is due out soon, with those loot cards we've been drooling over.

The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game World Championships have started up this weekend in Paris, France -- there's some excellent coverage on the official site about all of the CCG gaming going on over there. They've got everything from a roundup of the swag bag to play-by-play on the featured matches and some good commentary on what kinds of decks players are bringing to the tables. All told, the players are fighting for a prize pool of $250,000 -- some serious cash for playing cards.

They're in the middle of Day 2 right now, so there's lots more tournament coverage to come from Paris. If you're a fan of the TCG, this weekend's your chance to check out what some of the top players are up to as they battle for the big prize.

I woke up at 7:00 this morning to get ready for the day at BlizzCon. The team is meeting at 8:30 to head over to the convention and start covering all the fun that's happening there. But of course before I finish my morning rituals, I have to peek into the swag bag again. This time it's opening up the packs of WoW TCG - Heroes of Azeroth.

Much to my surprise I find a loot card! A Thunderhead Hippogryph, pictured above from the Upper Deck site. Of course the cards are inserted completely random into the packs, and the bags are given out at random too – so no way I bribed someone a million billion dollars for this.

Our weekly podcast is back again this Saturday (as it is every weekend, at 3:30pm Eastern on WoW Radio), and this week's show promises to be a good one. Not only is Turpster going to be on with us, and not only are we welcoming our new columnist Chase Christian to the show for the first time, but we're going to give away probably the best prize we've ever passed out on the WoW Insider Show: a Bananas pet monkey, straight from Turpster's WoW TCG collection.

Come for the giveaway, but stay for the discussion, because we'll be chatting about the raid tweaking coming in 3.0.2, the non-Honor wipe, Blizzard's big win in the Glider case, and AoE Tanking and why the devs seem to be passing it out like Hallow's End candy. And as usual, we'll answer your emails and questions -- drop us a note at theshow@wowinsider.com, or join us live during the show on IRC at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.

Should be a great time, and hey, if you come listen, you might walk away with your own pet monkey! He'll clean and cook and do all kinds of things for your character in-game.* And his name is Bananas! What a great name for a monkey!

*Note: Monkey comes untrained. And it might be hard to train a noncombat pet. But look how cute!

I bought my daughter's 'Future Horde' onesie from J!nx long before she was even conceived. I knew when I got my 'For the Horde' shirt that I wanted myself to have a matching outfit with my baby. I love World of Warcraft merchandise... I guess I'm just a real fanboy that way. I have some of the action figures, and I'm looking at getting Vindicator Marrad as soon as I set aside some RL Gold.

My brother-in-law gave my wife and I the World of Warcraft board game a couple of years back, and I got more than a few packs of the Trading Card Game (although I was probably just hoping for some cool loot). I love the comic books -- both the ones from Wildstorm and the ones from Tokyopop -- and I enjoy a lot of the Warcraft-based comics online. I gobble up pretty much most anything World of Warcraft.

So here's something to chew on this morning: what World of Warcraft merchandise or spin-offs do you like so far? There's the Frostmourne replica, of course. And we've given away cool stuff from Manaprincess, too. The Bronze Kettle / WoW Insider's Shelbi Roach makes those awesome, awesome, awesome chibi items like stickers and keychains. What World of Warcraft-related stuff do you have? Do you make any of your own?

If you remember way back to the end of June, we told you about the new tabards available for purchase using your UDE points from the WoW Trading Card Game. At the time, Upper Deck said the new tabards would be included with patch 2.4.3. Well, 2.4.3 is here, but the tabards are sadly not.

According to UDE_Patrick, the plan for releasing the tabards is now a little different. The first tabard will be available on August 1st, and each additional tabard will be added one at a time over "several months." He doesn't really specify why this change has been made, or even which tabard will be first.

Some of us will obviously be disapponted (like tipster Donna, who already has ample points to pick up one for her, and one for her boyfriend). Some of us will have a little more time to pick up more points in before the release, and maybe score some of the cool loot cards from the new set.

For the Fourth, we're going with the obvious choice: a hot little infinite fireworks trinket that isn't all that easy to get.

Name: Perpetual Purple Firework (Wowhead, Thottbot, TCGLoot)
Type: Epic (sometimes Uncommon) Trinket
Damage/Speed: N/A
Abilities:

• Use: Shoots a purple fireworks display into the air that explodes into a rain of sparkles.
• It has infinite uses (hence the "perpetual"), and a 30 second cooldown. The whole display itself lasts about 4 seconds, but it does like pretty purty.
• No level requirements, so anyone can use it -- provided you can get it.

How to Get It: Yes, it's a TCG item, but not one of the normal ones, where you just buy a booster and hope you pick it up. Nope, this fireworks trinket is part of Upper Deck's "points" program, in which points is just a fancy word for "spend more money!" Every booster pack you buy has a certain number of points in it, and when you've collected enough points cards, you can spend them on UDE's website for ingame items like this one. There's about 100 points per booster pack, and this item currently costs 3,000 points (it used to cost 10,000!), so you'd have to buy 30 booster packs (MSRP around $5, though you can find them cheaper and more expensive in different places, so about $150 total) to get enough points for the trinket.

Fortunately, we have eBay, where people are selling and buying the UDE points for as cheap as $15. Still not really a great way to get an ingame item (spending real money for virtual stuff, woo!), but if you really want to get your hands on this trinket, there you go. Otherwise, just do a few runs of Scarlet Monastery's Armory, and you'll have all the fireworks you need.

Getting Rid of It: You can't! Vendors won't take it, and it'll never run out of charges, so the only way to get rid of it would be to destroy it. And that would be like throwing money down the drain, which is something that TCG buyers would never ever do, right? Right?

Upper Deck is hosting a fun little TCG event at various stores around the country this weekend -- the Two-headed Ogre Smash and Bash is a new event they have planned in which two players (so you and a friend) show up and fight together against another team with constructed decks (which means you show up, and they give you cards to make decks with, without having to bring your own). It seems like a lot of fun, and even if you're not a huge WoW TCG fan, if you can bring along someone who knows what they're doing, they can probably carry you (just like real Two-headed Ogres).

There's a $40 per team entrance fee, but the good news is that you get to keep all the cards you play with (eight booster packs, and you never know, there might be a loot card in there), and additionally, everyone who turns out for the tournament gets a code for one of those fireworks trinkets (that sets off fireworks at will), and the winner of each tourney gets an Ogre disguise to wear ingame.

There's a list of tournament locations over on the website -- the TCG probably isn't for everybody, but we've never really seen a more beginner-friendly event for the card game, since the fact that you've got two players here means that you can back each other up. Seems like fun -- if you go, definitely be sure to tell us how it went.

Last week we told you about the new loot Upper Deck was launching a new expansion to WoW TCG. We even showed you pictures of what the cool new stuff will like for Patch 2.4.3. Well, now you can see these juicy tidbits in action with our movie of them.

You'll see us testing The Path of Illidan, trailing green felfire from our footsteps while running, jumping and even dancing. We've also got video of a few cross-faction D.I.S.C.O. parties gettin' down and funky, with the music and sparkly lights. It was dance fever!

Then it was time to try out the Ethereal Soul-trader. He announces himself as if your life is finally complete and follows you around very dutifully. Enjoy the movie - Adam, Zach, and I sure enjoyed making it for you!

Upper Deck has sent news of the newest loot items in the WoW TCG, and yowza they're neat. These will all come in the new expansion, called The Hunt for Illidan and launching July 1st.

• The Path of Illidan, which is a super common loot card (like the Pet Biscuits), and will enable players to leave glowing green footprints around Azeroth and Outland as they walk around.
• D.I.S.C.O., which creates a disco party anywhere, along with a disco ball, lights, and music.
• And finally, most interesting, the Ethereal Soul-trader, who is a full-size Ethereal as a pet. Additionally, this card is actually a whole slew of items in one -- the Soul-trader will give you currency for creatures killed while summoned, which can then be traded off for other prizes, including special foodstuffs, a special alcoholic drink, a ball of energy (to throw in people's bags and play catch with), and even the Ethereal's outfits as wearable items.

Pretty incredible. Upper Deck is hosting a preview of the next expansion on Saturday at various locations around the country, and the cards will be out, as we said, on July 1st. The Spectral Tiger Mount was great, but I think we have a new loot card winner with the Soul-trader. A mobile NPC with their own currency gained from killing mobs? Yes please.