MDI 2023: Group A Preview

The 2023 Mythic Dungeon International is HERE! The Time Trials have concluded, the 24 qualifying teams have been determined, and the action starts now! This weekend will see the teams from Group A battling it out in a double-elimination tournament, with the two top teams earning themselves one of the coveted spots in the Season Finals. To get you prepped for the dungeon-running frenzy, we bring you our Group A Preview! Read on for a brief introduction to each of the Group A teams and our predictions for this weekend’s matches.



The MDI starts at 10am PST / 7pm CET and you can watch it live over on the Warcraft YouTube Channel, or the Warcraft Twitch Channel. If you aren’t able to tune in, we’ve got you covered with LIVE updates and highlights all weekend long over on the MDI Highlights page!

Table of Contents

MDI 2023 Format

The current format of the MDI is continuing the structure that was first implemented in Season 2 of Shadowlands. We’ll provide a quick rundown of how the tournament Season works for those of you that might be new to the esport!

Earlier this month the Time Trials took place, which is a qualifying round that took place on the Tournament Realm. Teams were given two Mythic+ keystones, with predetermined dungeons and affixes. They had 6 days and unlimited attempts to be one of the 24 fastest teams in order to qualify for the Group stage. The dungeons started at level +15, capped out at +21, and from that point forward completion time was the differentiating factor.

The Time Trial Leaderboards were hosted here on Raider.IO, and you can check out the Teams Leaderboard and the Dungeons Leaderboard if you want to take a look at how quickly some of these teams steamrolled through the two Time Trials dungeons.

The 24 teams with the combined lowest completion time for both dungeons qualified for the Group weekends. This next stage of the tournament splits the teams into 3 groups of 8, labeled Groups A, B, and C. The teams compete only on their Group weekend against their Group competitors in a double-elimination style bracket. Each match consists of two teams racing head-to-head in a series of maps or games, with the victor for each map being the team that completes the dungeon first. Each match is a best-of-3 with the finals being a best-of-5. At the end of the weekend, the top two teams earn a qualifying spot in the Season Finals that will take place later this Season.




6 teams will qualify for the Season Finals from the Group stage, which leaves 2 more spots available. These spots will be filled by the top two teams from The Last Stand. This is a second-chance opportunity for teams to qualify, whether or not they were part of the Group stage or Time Trials. Teams sign up for The Last Stand and participate in a separate Time Trials over 3 days. The top 6 teams from those Time Trials will then compete in The Last Stand, which uses a The Great Push style tournament format.

Instead of head-to-head dungeon races, teams will instead have five hours each day to speedrun a set of predetermined keystones over the weekend. The Keystone level will not increase when completing these runs. Instead, at the end of each competition day, the combined time across all dungeons will be added up and the slowest team on Day 1 and Day 2 will be eliminated. On the final day, only four teams remain, and the two teams sporting the fastest combined times across all dungeons will move on to join the other 6 contestants in the MDI Season Finals!

Group A Teams Preview

Group A weekend contains some household MDI names, including the reigning champions Echo, but we also have some newcomers to the scene! Read on for a brief introduction to each team, including their MDI history and what they’re thinking coming into this weekend’s competition!

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Echo is definitely coming into Group A as the team to beat, being the 5x reigning champs of the MDI. They’ve made one roster change, replacing DPS player Fragnance with Meeres, an original member of the team who had moved into a coaching role for the last couple of Seasons. Echo has more MDI experience on their roster than almost every other team in the tournament, and some of the best multi-class players in the world. Echo was the top seeded team out of the Time Trials, with a combined dungeon time of 23:46 and a 25 second lead. Will they be able to live up to their own legend in the 2023 MDI?

“The teams we are looking at this season are Perplexed and Monka. Perplexed has been a top team for years and Monka improved a lot last year, so we look a bit at what they are doing with classes, etc. In our Group it’s Sloth and Legendary who are the two teams we expect the most from. They were both a bit behind in Time Trials but they have good players so they will be a competitor; Teamswe as well.” —Clickz

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Sloth, a Spanish team, is definitely one to be looking out for. They first emerged on the MDI scene in Season 1 of Shadowlands, and improved their showing in each tier. During the 2022 MDI, they managed to exceed expectations by upsetting both the second and fifth seeded teams in Group C, earning themselves a direct spot for the Global Finals despite only being the eighth seed coming out of the Time Trials. They ultimately ended up taking a well deserved 4th place finish in the Season 3 Shadowlands Global Finals, proving to everyone that they are a force to be reckoned with. They are the 6th seeded team from the Time Trials this time around, but with a combined dungeon time that is only 3 minutes behind top team Echo. Sloth is known for innovative routes and roster compositions, so keep your eyes on this EU-based squad!

“We feel a bit uncertain since it’s the first MDI Group of a new expansion, with a new meta and keys that have never been speedrun before. We still think that we’re doing fast runs but you can’t tell 100% until you see others. Our biggest competitor I think is Echo, they’re kind of good. Our goal is to qualify for Global Finals since we feel like the level of play skyrockets and it is where you really learn and get much better.”
—Mky

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We certainly expect this team to live up to their name, as they boast a roster of some very experienced MDI competitors. While they have never competed together with this full group, there are many MDI Seasons under their collective belts, with Tobo and Igloo earning a Bronze Medal in MDI Season 3 of Shadowlands. We expect to see some impressive multi-classing and strong mechanical gameplay. The only player on the team that is new to the MDI is Wexi - but he is a member of the Method RWF squad, and is no stranger to the pressures of competition. Legendary could prove dangerous to Echo and the other teams for sure!

“I think we'll be well prepared for our dungeons and play our routes cleanly, just depends on how good the other team's routes are compared to ours. Echo is kind of a level above us at the moment so I wouldn't expect to beat them in this Group, leaving Sloth as our main competition. Our goal is to place 2nd in Group A realistically, we're a pretty new team so there's still a lot of room for growth and improvement.” —Tobo

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Two members of the team YEPPERS from the last Season of Shadowlands, Roff and Serrated, have joined forces with Slapp, Badd, and Lfxp to form Teamswe. However, for this upcoming MDI grouping, Ayije will be substituting in for Slapp. Slapp will be returning to compete with Teamswe in their next MDI appearance.

We truly don’t know what to expect from this team coming into the Group stage. They finished the Time Trials in the 12th seed, and have stated they are mostly competing for fun, but Echo seems to think they are a team to look out for and those guys know what they’re talking about. They have some MDI veterans on the squad and all of the players are well-known for their dungeon prowess. Teamswe could end up being a wildcard!

“We will only play a few hours for fun, so no expectations really. Getting 5th or 6th would be good.” —Roff

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Other than healer Bergman, the Levels squad are all brand-new to the MDI. That being said, they finished the Time Trials solidly at number 13, only 12 seconds behind Teamswe. Their first matchup of the Group A weekend will be against Teamswe, so we are expecting a very tight series! Fun fact: Group B team “Who Let Them Cook” are all ex-guildmates of the Levels players! It’s too bad they won’t be facing off against each other this weekend as they got seeded into different Groups.

“Our plan is to play as well as we can since it is the first MDI for most of us. Our goal is to finish in the top 4. We see our chances as pretty slim due to many great teams playing this Season… our biggest competitor is Teamswe.” —Waalpen

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Coming into the Group A weekend with probably the best team name of the tournament, is Resetouilles. This French team, all players of the guild Reset, is pretty new to the competition as a whole, and we’re excited to see what they’re able to do. They finished the Time Trials in the 18th spot, and their first matchup will be against 7th seeded Legendary. They have a tough road ahead of them, but we’ve been surprised by newcomers before! Maybe they’ll be able to pull a… Rat…out of their hats?

“We’re a team of friends from the same guild who decided to try our chance at the MDI adventure! Most of us are working during the day or are still students so we don’t have so much time to practice, but we’re trying to use the little time that we have as best as we can. We’re very proud of being part of the competition and we’ll for sure do the best that we can during the Group stage! We are a pretty new team with some inexperienced players, and it’s our first MDI so we’re not expecting that much. Obviously, we will try our best but we don’t have the experience or the practice time of top teams so it will be hard for us to compete against them.”
—Phillou

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The original 20th seeded team, Deave and the 7 Bears, has unfortunately had to drop out of the tournament. This is good news for Apes Together Strong, who will be replacing them in this weekend’s Group A competition! As the brackets had already been released, Apes Together Strong will be swapping spots with Deave directly. This team name might be familiar to MDI fans, as they competed in both the 2nd and 3rd Seasons of Shadowlands. They’re back with their original roster from their first competition as a team. We were looking forward to watching newcomers Deave and the 7 Bears play, but the return of Apes Together Strong is equally as exciting!

“Of course, I am most surprised that we managed to get in at the last minute. No practice was planned for the Last Stand tournament since we mainly do this for fun while gaming with the gang. Personally I don't feel pressured nor does the team. We are not expecting massive results, we play for the fun of it. The biggest challenge was finding time for practice; to allocate time with our own progression raids, IRL, and other obligations we have, the performance might fall short of perfection. It's exciting to see many previously competing teams in our Group stage, I'm sure it will be competitive to watch and play.” —Haags

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Lucky Seven sure are lucky, earning the last berth to the Group stage with their 24th place finish in the Time Trials. The team is brand new to the MDI competitive scene, but let’s not count them out! Being the underdog can come with the advantage that nobody knows you or expects much, so the opportunity is there to surprise everyone…especially as a team with a keen interest in doing crazy pulls! We should note that their first matchup of the Group stage is against Echo, so they definitely have their work cut out for them. The team are all members of the same guild, also named Lucky Seven.

“All of us have a common interest in doing crazy pulls in dungeons and seeing how fast they can be done…we signed up with the intent to have fun doing crazy pulls and see how far we could go. We never thought we would actually qualify for the Group stage as we were just five guildies that started playing together for the Time Trials. Our goal is to gain as much experience as we can as this is the first time any of us have done anything like the MDI. We plan on winning at least one map before it's over. For us it's a massive advantage to not be in the same spotlight Echo is in, as that will give us more energy to focus on our own game plan without having to worry about outside pressure.” —Crest

Predictions

Group A is going to be a spicy one! We will once again be graced with the performance of the five-time consecutive champions, Echo. While we are not sure yet if they will showcase their best and most advanced strategies in Group A, it will be up to the rising challengers to force Echo to show their hand. Thankfully, Group A is expected to be one of the closest ones we might see all season.

Due to the way the seeding works for this stage of the MDI, Group A has the arguably closest match-up, as it includes both the sixth and seventh seeded teams: Sloth (#6) and Legendary (#7). The earliest both of these teams will possibly be meeting each other is in the second match of Day 2, so you better not miss it. Echo is more than likely to wait in the Upper Bracket finals for whoever wins this Match 6.

Sloth and Legendary are likely going to face off a second time in the Lower Bracket as a result, with the winner of that match securing themselves a spot for the Season Finals. Between Echo, Sloth and Legendary, only two will be able to advance, and we all expect Echo to go through the Group A tournament without dropping a single map. It will be up to Sloth and Legendary to stop them.




With their incredible performance and innovative routing during last year's MDI, many expect Sloth to pull yet another rabbit out of their proverbial hats, especially with an all-new dungeon setup that has not yet been fully explored and optimized. However, they will have their work cut out for them, as Legendary’s roster is living up to its name. With multiple players that have MDI experience reaching as far back as BFA and even Legion, their roster is stacked with RWF players, Highkey pushers and MDI veterans.

While Echo, Sloth and Legendary are definitely the favorites for this week’s event, both Levels and Teamswe have shown that they are more than capable of running down the keys almost as fast as the competition. With how quickly things can go wrong in a live event, we should keep an eye on both teams as they are certainly capable of upsetting the competition, and brawl their way to glory through the Lower Bracket.

It is unlikely that Resetouilles, Lucky Seven, or Apes Together Strong can take down the higher-seeded teams, but they can go into this tournament with a lot less pressure to perform. It wouldn’t be the first time that a tournament favorite is taken down by the power of friendship, and taking things a bit slower might improve their odds to success.

With the dungeon key-levels being set even higher than in the Time Trials, some of the massive pulls that teams will have to pull off come at a very high risk. Doing so consistently throughout a live event, where you only have one shot to succeed, is quite a bit different than repeatedly running attempts during the Time Trials. While the favorites of this group managed to finish their TT dungeons quite a bit faster than the rest of the competition, it only takes a handful of minor mistakes to make a run for the championship end in disaster and disappointment instead.



Will Echo continue their unstoppable stride for this year's MDI as well? Will Legendary be forging their own legendary saga? Will the Spaniards from Sloth take out these all-star rosters, just like they did last year? Or will one of the underdogs upset the entire thing, and take home one of the two coveted spots for the Season Finals? If you wanna find out, you better join us on Friday at 10AM PST/7PM CET for Group A of the 2023 Mythic Dungeon International Championship!

Language Streams

This year’s MDI can be watched on either the official Warcraft Twitch.tv or YouTube channels. In addition to the official English production, you will also be able to follow the event in multiple other languages:

• German: https://www.twitch.tv/kimuh
  
• French: https://www.twitch.tv/kusa
  
• Spanish: https://www.twitch.tv/phobyac
  
• Ukrainian: https://www.twitch.tv/poor_imagination and https://www.youtube.com/@ua_wow

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