I’m guessing that the tournament will be vehicle based for precisely the reasons you describe, it would be too hard to balance otherwise. This feature explains why they decided to make ground mounts waterproof (a feature they knew about in time to announce it at last year’s Blizzcon) – it seemed like a very random thing to spend dev time on, but makes sense in the context of revamping the mount engine for a major jousting tourney.

I was hoping – but not hopeful – that there was something held back from the pre-PTR announcements along the lines of more solo/daily content – it seemed like the patch would be pretty thin for non-raiders. Looks like Blizzard agrees, though I’m going to wait and see how this tournament turns out before I pass judgement.