With Patch 3.1 comes the argent tournament. Just like Netherwing or Ogri'la, you progress through the tournament in phases. Instead of rep grinding you grind tokens. Suck it, humans! The tokens don't use the currency menu so enjoy losing another inventory slot. On most of them you ride a vehicle. Here are its abilities.

Thrust: Hits for 3250 damage, 2 sec cooldown.
Shield break: 5-30 yard range, 2k damage, removes one stack of defended, does 2k damage, 2 sec cooldown. It has a flight time and requires you face your enemy.
Charge 8-30 yard range, 8500 damage and removes one stack of defended, and gives you the buff Charge that makes your horse go faster for a few seconds.
Defend: Stacks up to three times, each stack reduces damage taken by 30%, 4 sec cooldown

1. The aspirant phase. There are two gold-only dailies available immediately. You have to do some quests to unlock the other dailies which give Sunreaver rep and a total of 5 tokens per day. You need 15 tokens to progress. One is to kill any 8 scourge in, a random selection of three quests that eventually send you to the other side of the map (Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills, or Dragonblight), and an extremely repetitive daily where you just practice using your vehicle abilities.

2. The Valiant phase. This is where I am now. You need 25 Valiant tokens to progress and get five per day from the five dailies. The only one really worthy of discussion is The Grand Melee. To complete The Grand Melee you must collect three tokens. You get one for each valiant you defeat. Here are the strategies I've developed:

Silvermoon City: I tried a couple times. It didn't seem particularly hard and I couldn't find any special strategy. It seems to just be "Try not to suck". I got it to about 5%, so I'll try to beat it tomorrow.

Undercity: When you charge, they're immobilized for a couple seconds. This is probably the key to beating them, but I couldn't figure out how to make use of it. I don't believe I ever even got it below half-health.

Thunderbluff: This valiant moves very slowly and never charges. He Thrusts very hard. I was able to defeat him by just keeping at max distance and shield breaking.

Orgimmar: He uses all of the standard abilities, but if you charge him, he 'counter charges' and does some damage. The Trick is that he's snared and doesn't counter-charge for ~4 seconds after you hit him with shield break. Shield break, charge, defend yourself, shield break, charge, etc.

Sen'jin: He has three abilities. If he's more than a couple yards away he starts spamming Shield Break which has a .5 sec cast time with no cooldown. He periodically runs away from you and starts the spam. He takes no damage from Charge. Sit on his face, try to make enough distance to get shield breaks off on him now and then, keep your shield up, and spam thrust. If you're feeling lucky, charge him when he runs away, run through him, and get off a quick shield break. Have him oriented so when he runs away from you he doesn't run outside the argent tournament area. If he does so, he resets, you're stuck in combat, and you'll have to dismiss your mount and get a new one.

3. Champion phase: I don't know.

Anyone have strategies for the UC or silvermoon valiants? Are the alliance valiants just model swaps of the Horde ones or do they have their own unique abilities? Anyone able to fill us in on the rest of the tournament?

Are you on the Champion level? Maybe the final tokens (can't remember the name) goes into currency as you can perceivably collect quite a few. I'm still running around fighting the valiants and the valiant's seals (I think they are called) are in my inventory.

For the Silvermoon valiant I couldn't really figure out any tactic. He tried to gain distance a few times, but I tried to just stay on him and use the small advantage you get from starting with three shields up when engaging. It was close to raid time so I just wanted to get it done before logging back onto live.

I defeated the Undercity Valiant, but only because someone else was beating up on it. I'm planning to test some more tomorrow when I have some time.

Actually it will come with patch 3.2 or later:
MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Argent Tournament Timing?
At least that is how I understand this.

I believe that post referred to the coliseum, which isn't up on the PTR either. The dailies seemed to refer to it not existing yet, so I'm presuming that the Tournament can go live without it.

I'm still on the valiants level, but so far there hasn't been anything you needed material wise. I doubt there will be later, as it seems the speed with which you can obtain items is pretty well regulated by the tokens needed, you can only get so many per day.

For the Undercity valiant I tried just charging him, continuing away while getting defense up and then turning around and charging back. Since he gets immobilized by charges it defeated him quite easily.

The duels with the NPCs are pretty ridiculous at the moment. I think I remember a blue post indicating that they were going to be adjusting (nerfing) them.

Think about it as "unlocking" Isle of Quel'Danas in 2.4. There are 2 daily quests on PTR from goblins - one to collect stone from Stormpeaks and another to collect wood from Crystalsong Forest - that is/will be most likely phase one. After your realm finish those enough times (or timer kicks in) another phase will open and more daily quests will open. At the end your realm will build Colloseum or something else will happen.

Yes, I'm at the champion level. The valiant seals don't need to be in the currency tab since their only use is ranking up.

The champ seals are in currency tab.

The simple strat to beating the valiants/champions/etc is to stack defend, engage, thrust till they back off to charge you, shield break them and close the gap before they can charge.

This strategy alone has defeated every last combatant I've fought.

If it works for you, go for it.

Or, if you don't want to waste time:
- Shield up (3)
- Charge as soon as you can, shield break while still in charge mode
- Melee till charge is up again
- Keep shield to 3 in case you ever get shield broken (rare)
- Repeat

This way your enemy never has more than 1 or 2 shields on him, while you always have 3. Its a guaranteed win unless Wintergrasp lag owns you.

I also have a question: I just got "of Ironforge" yesterday, did the champion dailies and picked up the gnomeregan quest after that. Will I still be able to do the champion quests while working my way up for gnomeregan? I kinda picked it up automatically without realizing I might have to wait with champion quests now.

Also, when you start a match, stand behind the NPC at max dialog range, i.e., as far from the center of the ring as possible. When you start the match, the NPC will run towards the middle of the ring, and spamming break/charge gets you a free opening shot with little or no return damage.

Once you're meleeing, it never fails that your opponent will eventually start to run away, giving you an opportunity to break/charge again.

Yes, you can do both; I started the IF Valiant quests today while simultaneously doing the Champion quests after finishing SW. I'm not sure this is intended (it's odd to be working on "Kill 10 Scourge" and "Kill 15 Scourge" at the same time) but that's how it is right now.

EDIT: For a full round of Champion + Valiant + Goblin (wood/stone) dailies, taking spoils bags instead of writs, the payout is 172g in perhaps 30 minutes of work.