The final raid of World of Warcraft’s current expansion Shadowlands is officially here, and the top guilds in the world are looking to be the first to kill The Jailer on Mythic difficulty.
While the names of the top two teams have changed over the past few years, the core raiders for each guild has largely remained the same. Each of the main tier raids since the beginning of the last expansion Battle for Azeroth have been won by one of two groups.
Echo dominated the early portions of BFA while the core of its team was still competing as a part of the WoW esports organization Method. Their main competition was Limit, which now competes as a part of Team Liquid.
At the end of BFA, Limit finally turned the corner against the guild that was then still referred to as Method, winning their first race in Ny’alotha, the final race of BFA.
In the first two races to world first of Shadowlands Limit and Echo took turns at the top. Limit took a win in Castle Nathria, while Echo gained back its title as the top guild in Sanctum of Domination.
Now the two guilds are prepared to go toe-to-toe one more time as Shadowlands comes to its conclusion with a climactic encounter with The Jailer, a boss Blizzard allowed testing for in an effort to make the fight more challenging for racers.
How to watch
Historically, watching the race to world first is a complicated affair. While more and more guilds have started to stream their racing efforts and allowed players to stream their perspectives, it muddies the waters on how you should go about viewing the event.
The race will begin on Tuesday, March 8 following the server reset in North America. At that time, Team Liquid, formerly Limit, and other NA guilds will dive into Sepulcher of the First Ones on Mythic difficulty. European guilds, like Echo, will get access to the raid after their weekly server reset, which is 16 hours following the North American reset.
There is no set end time for the race, but it will last at least six days. Sometimes the race has lasted longer with the final boss being down more than a week after the raid’s release.
There is no right way to watch the race to world first. But which broadcast you want to watch may depend on a number of factors including your knowledge of the game, interest in a specific class, and fandom for a certain guild.
Team Liquid
The official broadcast by Liquid will likely be one of the more popular viewing experiences for casual North American fans. With a team of 11 personalities, the broadcast will include daily morning and evening shows. Though this is Liquid’s first time running such an event, you can expect that it will be similar to the Complexity-Limit broadcasts from recent raids.
If you’re a newer fan to WoW and perhaps don’t know as much about the game, this will be a place where you can get educated on the race and keep up with it in a way that won’t feel as overwhelming as other broadcasts.
Echo
For those looking to watch the reigning RWF champs, Echo’s efforts will be streamed from their official Twitch channel as well. To fill out the broadcast, the EU guild has partnered with Big Dumb Guild to also broadcast the North American guilds progression. In the last tier, BDG was the second NA guild to finish Sanctum of Domination.
Method
Method doesn’t hold the same level of clout that it once did after its core roster left the organization. Following a complete overhaul of its roster, however, the team is back to competing, even though it’s not at the same level as Echo or Liquid. The organization will have its own stream similar to Echo and Liquids.
Maximum
Liquid’s raid leader Maximum has turned into one of the most popular people to watch during the RWF in the past few years. After he began streaming his perspective with raid communications, something no one had previously done, the most hardcore and dedicated fans of the grassroots WoW competition flocked to his channel.
He will again be streaming with raid comms, and as a raid leader who does not play, he will be able to follow the perspective of a player that has their user interface setup in a way that is optimized for having the most information possible. This stream will be the ideal one to go to if you know a lot about WoW and don’t want all of the fluff that team broadcasts will have.
Other top players
Numerous players will be streaming their perspectives as well. From top players like Echo’s Gingi to Liquid’s ImFiredUp, no matter what role you play, there will likely be a player that you can watch and learn from who is playing at a world-first level.
If you don’t know players by name, your best bet for finding someone who plays your class is to either look at top guilds’ rosters and search names of players in Twitch. Alternatively, you will be able to find a slew of top players in the directory of the WoW category on Twitch.
