Filed under: Contests

12 Days of Winter Veil is under way here at WoW Insider. That means 12 days of giveaways, 12 chances for you to win some of the awesome swag we've accumulated over the year. Whether you've been a good goblin or a naughty night elf, there's a chance that WoW Insider has a holiday gift for you this season.

We're kicking off our 12 Days of Winter Veil giveaways with a sweet piece of in-game loot: a Blazing Hippogryph courtesy of WootLoots.com. Valued over $150 by collectors, this is not a mount you'll come across often.

To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment on this post before 11:59 p.m. ET, Thursday, December 27, 2012. You may only enter once. We will choose one winner at random and contact you via whichever method you've used to comment. Because this is a purely digital item, readers of all regions may enter for a chance to win.

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Beginning December 20, WoW Insider is once again holding its annual 12 Days of Winter Veil giveaway bonanza. Each day, we'll be giving away a piece of swag on the site, either from the stash of swag we've accrued over the course of 2012, or from participating vendors such as Cryptozoic and WootLoots.com.

All contests will follow our standard giveaway rules. In brief, you enter each contest by leaving a comment on the individual contest posts. We will choose winners at random from those comments. To be eligible to win, you must be 18 or older and a legal resident of the United States or Canada (minus Quebec).

We will be giving away less swag this year than we have previous years, but we assure you it isn't due to a lack of it -- rather, previous years have taught us that more isn't better. When we were doing 2-3 giveaways per day, the contest posts effectively became spam, and the logistics of distributing nearly 100 total prizes was somewhat overwhelming for all involved. This year, we'll be giving away one awesome item per day, and anything we have left over will be distributed more evenly over the course 2013. This will ensure that not only will you receive your winnings more quickly and efficiently, but you'll have something to look forward to throughout the coming year.

Get excited, ladies and gentlemen -- your first opportunity to win some neat swag is just a week away. Best of luck to everyone looking to enter!

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If you're the kind of person who enjoys building set toys, like World of Warcraft Mega Bloks, then this contest is for you. To quote the contest instructions:

Take your Mega Bloks World of Warcraft sets and stack, rearrange, redesign and recombine 'em into never-before-seen creations. We want to see how big, impressive and creative you can be with your sets. Once you're ready, snap some pictures of your masterpiece and submit them through our official "Build Big, Win Big" Facebook Contest.

So if that's you, head over to the Facebook page and see if you want to enter. Time is short - the contest ends in two days. The grand prize winner will get five CE's, one for classic World of Warcraft and one for each of the expansions. There are plenty of other prizes to win as well, check the official rules here for details.

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Last year Blizzard held a World of Warcraft Student Art Contest, with their University Relations and World of Warcraft teams picking entries from art students challenged to design an piece of 3D art that would appear in game. Today we discovered that they're doing it again with this year's contest asking for student artists to design an original character piece and/or an environment piece.

The prizes up include a three month internship with Blizzard artists and a free year of WoW, and the deadline for entry is Tuesday, January 15th 2013. You can enter the contest here. So if you're eligible (you have to be an enrolled college student) and think you have what it takes, get to work.

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Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.

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Last week, we held a contest to give away a panda SpiritHood and the time has come to choose our winner. Our winner is ... Faileana! You will be receiving an email from me in the very near future.

If you were one of the many that did not win but are still eager to rock a SpiritHood, have no fear: for the next two days, you can use the coupon code "PANDAMONIUM" to receive 20% off of your order. Remember to watch for that ProBlue stamp!

Once again, be sure to follow SpiritHoods on Facebook and Twitter, and check out a video of their Fall/Winter lineup behind the cut below.

With Mists of Pandaria right around the corner, we're giving away a panda hood courtesy of SpiritHoods. To enter for a chance to win, all that you need to do is leave a comment on this post before 11:59 p.m. PDT on Thursday, Sept. 27. To be eligible to win, you must be 18 years old or older and a legal resident of the United States or Canada (excluding Quebec). See the complete official rules for details.

In just a few short days, we'll all be in-game questing hard for the pandaren of Azeroth. If you're looking to help the pandas in the real world (and get a swanky hood at the same time), check out SpiritHoods' ProBlue label -- when you purchase a hood with the ProBlue label, 10% of net profits from your purchase goes towards a charity aimed at the conservation of that particular animal. Buy a hood, save a panda! Or a tiger, polar bear, snow leopard, or wolf, all depending on your tastes.

Be sure to follow SpiritHoods on Facebook and Twitter, and check out a video of their Fall/Winter lineup behind the cut below.

Last week we showcased the runners-up for WoW Insider's first Transmogrification Contest. Today, we've got the winners to show you. As I said on Thursday, there were over 400 outfits submitted to the contest, with entrants aiming to create the best possible outfit using a single piece of gear as the central theme. Picking winners out of that lot was not easy!

Our first winner is Ranjiku from Daughters of the Horde (Bronzebeard-US). Here's what she had to say about her outfit.

Before mogging was even a glimmer, I won a roll for the Robes of Rhonin in an achievement guild run, and the robe was way too gorgeous to ever let go. So when [transmogrification] finally became a reality, I knew I'd use this robe first ... Then I found the [helm] pictured and BOOM, "Evil Queen from Snow White!"

Two weeks ago, WoW Insider began a contest challenging readers to make a transmogrification outfit centered around a single piece of gear. Since then, we've received an absolutely insane number of entries (over 400 individual outfits in total), but we could only pick three prize winners in the end.

Despite this, we thought it might be fun to show off all the contest entries. In the gallery below, you'll find the contest runners-up. These are some of the most impressive entries that for one reason or another didn't quite make the cut.

And if you'd really like to see all of the entries, we made a separate gallery for them.

Check back tomorrow to see the winners!

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My favorite dress in WoW is the Arachnidian Robes. The first time I saw them was right after patch 3.0.2 had hit live servers, when achievements were added. I was storming through the front gates of Stormwind in a For the Horde raid, when I spotted a human female wearing the robes near the auction house. She must have been some sort of bank alt, because that's all she was wearing, but I was so impressed by her that I stopped to inspect her amid the battle.

I eventually tracked down the dress for myself four or five months later, but once I had it, I really had no idea what to do with it. It was pretty enough on its own to be a stand-alone outfit, and years before transmogrification, there was no compelling reason to try and match it to anything -- at least until recently, when my boyfriend followed up on a promise to take me to Serpentshrine Cavern. I had never seen the place and wanted an escort who had raided it when it was still new. While we were there, I picked up a pretty little tanking mace called Mallet of the Tides, which just so happened to match the Arachnidian Robes perfectly. Thus, a transmog outfit was born.

With that as my introduction, I decided I'd do something a bit different for this week's transmog column. Just as I did, I now want you to create a transmogrification outfit of your own that builds on or complements a single piece of gear (armor or weapon) that you like. Submit your outfit by Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m. EDT and you'll have the chance to win fabulous prizes and have your outfit featured here on WoW Insider. More details after the jump.

With today's news of Mists of Pandaria's Sept. 25 release date, there's sure to be a surge of interest in the expansion, and Blizzard is giving you the opportunity to get into the beta before it ends with a new sweepstakes. All you have to do is follow Warcraft on Facebook and complete the entry form, and you're good to go. They'll draw 2,000 names a week, and half of those will receive another key to give to a friend, for a grand total of 15,000 keys.

Check out the full Blizzard summary below, and get crackin' if you're not in the beta yet!

Mists of Pandaria Beta Key Sweepstakes

We've just launched a Mists of Pandaria Beta Key Sweepstakes! Starting July 31, we'll be randomly selecting 2,000 winners each week to receive a key to our exclusive World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta test. In addition, every other winner chosen will receive a second key to share with a friend! Drawings will occur every Tuesday for five weeks for a total of 15,000 keys.

To enter participants simply need to follow Warcraft on Facebook and complete our official entry form between now and August 27 for a chance to win. For more information about how to participate, check out the sweepstakes rules and eligibility page and our sweepstakes FAQ.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Attention, mogging athletes! Amateur Azerothian is hosting the Mogolympics, a transmogrification competition that consists of nine medal sports, including:

• Hammer Throw Build an outfit around a two-handed hammer.
• Cycling Build a biker outfit to complement Mekgineer's Chopper.
• Javelin Build an outfit for wielding a polearm.

The costumes will be assigned an ID so that the judges won't be able to play favorites. Here's who will be judging:

• Amateur Azerothian JD Kenada himself
• Tome from Tome of the Ancient
• Sugar & Blood's Matty
• Khizzara from Blog of the Treant

Random tabard-wearing WoW factions are chosen for each entrant to represent. The competitors must submit a flagbearer as well as entries for all nine events. For full details, see the rules for the contest, the list of entrants, and the clarifications.

The deadline isn't until July 31, so you have plenty of time to put your costumes together. Check out our transmogrification posts for some training tips, but a true mogolympic athlete probably doesn't need them.

Good luck!

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Let's cut right to the chase: We have Mists of Pandaria beta keys. You want a Mists of Pandaria beta key. We would like to give one to you, but we don't have enough for every single member of our audience.

If you'd like a chance to win one of twenty (20) Mists of Pandaria beta keys, leave a comment on this post within the next 24 hours. At 5:00 p.m. EDT on June 27, we will select 20 winners and announce them right here.

Good luck!

Update: The winners have been chosen! They are as follows:

• hypatia999
• QuintinCrabb
• Szymon
• tj.brandhorst
• MattDye
• MatuMikey
• tomwiener
• SirBroose
• hussamshabi
• JenniferSiciliano
• GamerKingFaiz
• Leviatharan
• fdaapprovedd
• TheLandingMan
• Niaca
• sharkie35
• Warsongraven
• Corndogfairy
• BapoThe-Paladin
• jayesh

If you're on this list, contact me via email at alex@wowinsider.com for further instructions.

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