MDI 2023: Notable Roster Changes

The Time Trials for the 2023 Mythic Dungeon International came to a close earlier this week. The dungeons and teams were given one final review, and Blizzard officially announced the 24 teams that have qualified for the Group stage this past Thursday. There’s some new names and some old hats, and some pretty interesting roster changes from the Shadowlands MDI Seasons.

As we wait with anticipation for the Group A weekend to start, we’re taking a closer look at how some of the rosters from the last expansion have been shaken up and swapped around for Dragonflight.



We have some more great MDI content coming your way, including previews of each Group weekend, so keep your eyes open for that…and don’t forget to tune in and watch the action on the Warcraft YouTube or Twitch! If you aren’t able to watch the competition live, we’ll keep you up to speed on everything with our LIVE MDI Coverage and Highlights!

Table of Contents

Echo

Back in August of 2022, one of the long-standing members of Echo’s MDI team and RWF Raiding roster, Fragnance, announced on Twitter that he was no longer raiding with Echo. He mentioned that this applied to the organization’s MDI and TGP team as well. We knew then that the reigning MDI champions would be making a swap, but it was unclear until recently if they would bring in a new player or have Meeres play some reversi and go back from Coach to Player.

It looks like the Echo squad is sticking with what they know, because Meeres is no longer on the sidelines! He’s back playing in a DPS spot, replacing Fragnance. Meeres competed in The Great Push from Shadowlands Season 4, but has not played in the MDI since the first Season of Shadowlands - but make no mistake that he’s ready to go. He’s been filling the role of the 6th man for the team the whole time, shot-calling and helping devise strats!

MONKA

MONKA earned the 2nd place finish in the Season 3 Shadowlands MDI, and have also finished this most recent Time Trials in the 2nd seed. This European based team is coming into Dragonflight with the same roster that earned that 2nd place finish last expansion. Their Time Trials looked very impressive, and we’re definitely looking out for them to be a team that could possibly give Echo a run for their money!

MONKA has been slotted into the Group C weekend, so they’ll be playing their matches from March 3rd to March 5th. There’s a handful of really solid teams in Group C, but our money is on MONKA to make it through and qualify for the Season Finals.

Perplexed

With Echo undergoing a roster change, Perplexed is now the MDI team that has the most competitions with the same roster under their belt. The European quintet of Divinefield, Rycn, Ashine, Swag, and Wolfdisco are back for another round of head-to-head dungeon racing.

Perplexed started out very strong in Shadowlands, even taking a weekend Cup off Echo in Season 1. However, their performance slowly declined from that point for the rest of the expansion. They went into the Season Finals of Shadowlands Season 3 as the 5th seed, and unfortunately were unable to make it past the second day. They were eliminated by W OMEGALUL and finished in the 6th place spot.

The new expansion has breathed new life and vigor (yes, that’s a Dragonriding pun) into Perplexed, with the team confident they are going to be a force to reckon with in competition. Their Time Trials performance already backs up that assertion. Not to mention that all five members of the squad have been pushing keys on live servers, with all of them at over 3,000 IO Score!

Donuts

The MDI team formerly known as Donuts and Despair has flown into Dragonflight with a new lease on life, and no more Despair! This is a team that came onto the MDI scene in the last tournament, and they came out of the gate strong, surprising many as they had some players brand new to the competition. Their very first showing on the big stage was the Group C weekend, which they won with a 2-0 victory over Sloth. They finished the Season 3 Shadowlands MDI in 5th place overall.

Now focused on just being Donuts, the team has made one notable roster swap by replacing DPS player Anarchy with Stove, a raider in Method. He is fairly new to competitive Mythic+, having only competed in one previous MDI. As the team showed us last year, however, being new-ish to the MDI won’t slow them down!

Cheese

This is a team we’re looking forward to watching when they compete in the Group C weekend in March. It’s the return of Fem to the MDI! For those of you who have been fans of the esport for many years, Fem is a household name. His last competition was in Season 4 of Battle for Azeroth, with his team Paint for Fem, and we thought he had hung up his tanking shoes for good. We’re happy to announce he’s back, with a team that is looking to make some waves!

Cheese is where ex-Echo player Fragnance has ended up, and we know he certainly has the skills and experience to win it all. Healing the team is Zhatzi, who competed last season with the team Yeppers. Ricky, a DPS with a lot of experience under his belt, is a long-time friend of Fem - it is no surprise that he left his previous team of W OMEGALUL to play with him once more. Rounding out the team is Drenaco, who we saw compete with Zhatzi on the team Practice? During the October 2021 Last Stand.

“Our team has an incredible roster…Not to toot our own horn but we have a wealth of experience from previous MDI, most notably Jimmy …But we’ve all been there before, we know how it works and we have some incredible button pushers on the team. While having a set of good players helps a lot, we also have a set of good brains and are able to come up with good ideas.” —Fem

Sloth

Sloth is a team that has been competing for a number of MDI tournaments now. They first came on the scene in Season 1 of Shadowlands, and were a notable addition as they are a team made up solely of Spanish players. The Mythic+ community in Spain is vibrant and competitive - they even have their own community Mythic+ event in Bloodlust.IO!

Sloth is coming back with almost the same roster that they used for all of Shadowlands, with the exception of Tundra returning to the team to replace Javier in the DPS slot. We’ve heard that Sloth have been putting in many hours preparing for this first MDI of Dragonflight, so they’re going to be a contender. They finished the last MDI of Shadowlands in 4th place, and are looking to make the top 3 podium this time around!

Legendary

European tank Lepan made an appearance on an NA based team in the last Season of Shadowlands, playing with Baldy, but is back to his home region on new team Legendary. He is joined by MDI veterans Igloo and Tobo who were both on W OMEGALUL last Season. It appears W OMEGALUL mostly went their separate ways, but all 5 of that team’s players are still on qualifying rosters! The last two DPS spots on Legendary are being filled by Splat and Wexi. Splat is a household name in the high-end community, especially amongst warlocks, and Wexi is a raider in Method. He’s fairly new to Mythic+ and competitive dungeon running, but he was a part of Method’s RWF squad for the last two raid tiers, and is an accomplished multi-classer.

Thunderstruck

A staple of the MDI and competitive dungeons is Drjay, who will be back for the 2023 MDI with a new squad. He and multi-class tank Lemiike have stuck together from their W OMEGALUL team, and have added some strong players to round out their roster. Soda and Yoda are joining Drjay on the DPS side of things, and Veloc will be keeping the Thunderstruck squad alive.

Soda competed last season with Evolved, a team that barely missed out on qualifying for the Season Finals. NA-based player Yoda is hopping over the pond to play with Thunderstruck. He has many MDI accolades under his belt, including a Global Finals Championship win back in Spring 2019 with Method NA.

Thunderstruck has many years of experience between them, and we expect them to make qualifying through Group C a challenge for any other team in their way.

Dire Wolves

A team that has been playing together for many years under various banners, Dire Wolves is the same squad as last season’s Ethical. One roster change has been made, with DPS player Chaz coming in to replace Shape.

Dire Wolves is the top competitive team coming from the OCE region, but they unfortunately did not qualify for the Season Finals last year. We expect they will put on quite a show when they compete in Group B on the weekend of February 24-26.

Thundered

3 members of Evolved from the last MDI have stuck together to form Thundered: Alex, Bazook, and Maskin. They are joined by two relative newcomers to the MDI, Baby and Subkrys. Evolved just missed out on qualifying for the Season Finals in S3 of Shadowlands, so we are keeping an eye on this squad to see if they are able to improve their standing with the roster changes.

Thundered joins Monka, Cheese and Thunderstruck in the Group C weekend in the first weekend of March. These teams are certainly going to have some tight match-ups!

Notable Absences

Jdotb, long-time staple of the MDI, will not be competing this season. He announced last month that competing in this MDI would be unlikely, and that does unfortunately seem to have come to fruition. He’s still pushing keys on live, so hopefully we’ll see him on the Tournament Realm in the future!



Last season he played on Baldy, with Team Liquid players Imfiredup, Lip, and Shakib. The foursome had been competing together for many MDIs, bringing in new tanks almost every season. In the last season of Shadowlands they finished at 7th place in the Season Finals, with Lepan in the tank role, who is now playing with Legendary. The other members of Baldy are also notably absent from this MDI.

Sjeletyven is also not competing this Season. Last year he played with Evolved, and with some roster swaps amongst various teams going into Dragonflight, it appears that Sjele was unfortunately unable to field a team to compete with. He’s been a veteran of the MDI for many years, going back to 2018 with the team Method Pogchamp, so we do hope he’ll make a return in The Great Push or the 2024 MDI!

Who We’re Watching!

There are a number of teams in the top 24 that have the potential to upset the status quo, improve their prior performances, and put on an amazing show. That being said, we’ve got our eyes on a few teams in particular!

Perplexed is looking really solid going into this first MDI of Dragonflight. They’ve got a lot to prove after their decline throughout Shadowlands, and the players are ready. They’ve been devoting more time to practice than ever before, and pushing keystones on live servers together. We expect them to finish their Group B weekend in the top 2, earning a qualifying spot in the Season Finals.

“For this Season we have restructured our approach to be more analytical rather than just banging our heads against the wall in combination with a much higher motivation than we had in the Shadowlands Seasons. Will be very interesting to see what the other teams have cooked up for our cup, especially Donuts!” —Wolfdisco

Monka is who we have our money on to potentially unseat Echo as MDI champions, so we will definitely be checking out their strategies and routes. Similar to Perplexed, they benefit from not having any roster changes going into Dragonflight, so we know the team has experience playing together which is a pretty key ingredient to MDI success.

“I think the Group stage is going to be fine for us, but we shouldn’t be too confident. I know that teams like Cheese and Thunderstruck can win against us if we make any mistakes. So those two teams are the biggest competitors for now in Group C.” —Maystine

We’re keen to see what Cheese is able to do as a “new” team of MDI veterans coming together, especially with the return of fan-favourite Fem! They will be benefiting from the experience of Fragnance who has won the last 5 MDI Championships alongside his ex-Echo teammates.

“I said to myself when coming back to Dragonflight that I’d only do it if I found a team that actually had the potential to win, which I believe we do. I believe we’ll smash Groups. There’s not really any team I’m scared of as we will put in the same hours…but obviously Monka is the biggest competitor on the way to Globals, but I am confident we will get there!” —Fem

---

Links

• NEW: Raider.IO Recruitment System
  
• Set up Raider.IO Stream Widgets
  
• Set up Raider.IO Discord Alerts
  
• Download the Raider.IO Client
  
• Support Raider.IO on Patreon

About the Author