World of Warcraft's Season of Mastery is now live, bringing fresh servers and a whole host of changes including faster leveling speeds and more difficult raid bosses. But more than a few players are looking to up the challenge even more by playing on "hardcore" mode using Season of Mastery's new Soul of Iron system.

In Season of Mastery, two newly added NPCs will grant players a special buff if they have yet to die called "Soul of Iron." This denotes that the recipient has never known defeat and is visible to other players. It's the first time WoW has officially supported a "hardcore" mode, even if it's not fully fleshed out.

While many official hardcore modes, like Diablo II's, result in permadeath, WoW Classic's Soul of Iron system simply causes players to lose their buff and instead receive a debuff reducing all stats by 1%. The debuff can be removed, but a character that has been slain can never again receive the Soul of Iron buff. The goal is to see how far players can go without dying, with the added risk associated with dying resulting in a more intense gameplay experience.