First up, the Desert Borderland test is taking place on Thursday. This new invitational pits three community streamers against one another. Here's the full run down:

Join us on Twitch on Thursday, July 30 as we celebrate our second World vs World Desert Borderlands Stress Test by pitting three community streamers against each other in the Desert Borderlands Invitational! In this event, Chemsorly, Shinryuku_ku, and Heurix, all playing locally from the ArenaNet offices, will be tasked with leading their respective teams to victory in a three-way battle in the new Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ Desert Borderlands WvW map. We’ll be streaming the action live from 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on the official Guild Wars 2 Twitch channel, with ArenaNet’s own Hugh Norfolk and Jessica Boettiger hosting the event.

The Desert Borderlands Stress Test will begin at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on July 30, and run for 24 hours. We’ve increased the number of individuals we’ll be inviting to this test by a considerable amount, so be sure to check the email account associated with your Guild Wars 2account to see if you’ve received an invitation.

We’ll see you on the battlefield!

As well as the above (I hope I get an invite!) there's plenty of news about the World Tournament Series finals at Gamescom. Unsurprisingly the lineup for the final is the same as it always is and despite a lengthy qualifier, it's the usual offenders:

After long and grueling qualifiers, four of the world's best Guild Wars 2 Arena teams from Europe, North America and China managed to punch their tickets for the World Tournament Series finals in Cologne.

The qualifying teams are as follows:

Orange Logo (Europe)
The Civilized Gentlemen (Europe)
Abjured (North America)
GLHF (China)

Prizes include a bag full of money for the winners ($25,000) as well as some fancy graphics cards. As the final piece of news, there's a new update to Guild Wars 2 today. It brings the opportunity to play (I think!) Season 1 of the Living World and there's some graphic improvements to the engine. Oh and there's a fair few changes to some profession skills, notably Engineer rifle gets a range increase. Take a look.