MDI Time Trials Recap

By Dratnos — Aug 30 2021 14:30 UTC

The Mythic Dungeon International (MDI) Time Trials have concluded, determining the 24 teams who will be competing in the three group weekends over the next month! If you missed it, you can check out our previous MDI article that explains and analyzes the new format. You can always find up-to-date tracking of the state of the MDI on RaiderIO, including Brackets with timestamped links to the matches, using the MDI tab above! Let’s meet the 24 teams.

1st Seed: Perplexed (EU)

Perplexed have been a powerhouse MDI team for several years now, and have claimed cup weekends in multiple different seasons, though they have yet to take the crown from Echo at a Global Finals. This Time Trials performance is another in a long history of Perplexed putting up incredible times and claiming first seeds.

2nd Seed: Echo (EU)

Echo played the time trials with a different roster than they used last MDI season, with Naowh out, Meeres to tank, and Clickz in. Recently, however, they’ve announced that Naowh will be competing with them during the remainder of the MDI, and Meeres will instead move to a 6th player position providing strategy and coaching from outside the dungeon. This team has dominated the MDI for the past few years and remains the scariest matchup for any challenger. Particularly impressive is their ability to multiclass at an extremely high level.

3rd Seed: Hill Factory (NA)

This team played previously under the banner of the Golden Guardians - this season they’ve added Scott as a tank, their fourth Complexity Limit raider, and have put up one of their best time trials results after a shaky MDI season in the spring. This is also one of the few teams who has ever taken a series off of Echo, claiming a Global Finals upset victory against them during early BFA. Jdotb, their healer, is known for his Resto Druid prowess and was the only top healer to bust the spec out during Time Trials (though only in one of the two dungeons).

4th Seed: Ambition (NA)

Ambition’s first MDI entrance begins with a bang! This team previously competed in high keys on the live servers and in The Great Push, and they’ve recently signed with the Golden Guardians. Though their players can play multiple specs, they also have several players who are known for specific classes, such as Ellesmere on Holy Paladin, JPC on Rogue, and Asuna on Mage - classes that happen to line up nicely with the current MDI meta.

5th Seed: Omega Pump (EU)

This new team boasts a powerful lineup of MDI veterans. You may recognize Drjay and Moadmoad from their streams and from previous MDIs, but don’t sleep on the other three members of the team who all have combinations of high mythic plus, MDI, and world first raid experience.

6th Seed: SHEESH (EU)

This team has made a few roster swaps since the Great Push, where they put up an incredibly strong showing just one point behind Echo’s winning total. As with Ambition, it’ll be interesting to see how well these higher key and Great Push teams translate their skills into the speedrunning format.

7th Seed: Team Name (EU)

This team’s lineup includes several veterans of MDIs, both last season’s and going back to the earliest days of the MDI. Lepan, their tank, you may recognize from one of our earliest Player Spotlights, or from his daily AoE cap removal tweet series.

8th Seed: Incarnation (NA)

Formerly under the name Does the Bear Stream, this team competed in the Great Push before being signed to the Golden Guardians and expanding their horizons to include the traditional speedrunning MDI. Their tank, Dorki, is known for his Guardian Druid and his ability to make “Bear Pulls” of astounding size work, though he is also a potent multiclasser and the team is bolstered by Yoda’s MDI experience as a former member of the team now known as Hill Factory.

9th Seed: Obey Alliance (OCE)

After a strong showing in the Spring season of the MDI, Oceania’s top team is back! With the ninth seed, they’ve fallen somewhat from their usual time trials performance from that season of MDI, where they were often seen in the 3rd Seed going into a cup weekend, so they’ll need to outperform at least one higher seeded team to qualify for Global Finals.

10th Seed: Practice? (EU)

Though they only have the 10th seed, this is a team to watch out for as they represent raiders from both World 1st guild Echo and World 2nd guild Complexity Limit. Their time trial runs also featured some innovation, including one of the few runs using an Elemental Shaman, a spec that saw a lot of play in the Spring season of the MDI but seems to have largely fallen out of favor in the speedrunning setting since then.

11th Seed: Reload Esports (EU)

Reload Esports claimed World 20th this tier as a Spanish language guild over on Zul’jin-EU. Their MDI team was able to put up strong three-chest performances in both time trial dungeons, and several of their players flexed between different specs in those two dungeons, a strong sign that this team has what it takes to compete!

12th Seed: Evolving (EU)

This team features renowned Warlock main Sjele (read his Player Spotlight here) and the good news is that this season Affliction can deal absolutely incredible damage in the right circumstances in Mythic+. The bad news is that the dungeon where Evolving used Warlock in the time trials, DOS, was a dungeon where they were only able to put up a 2-chest performance. Depending on the keystone level and how well they can leverage that powerful option, this team may be an underdog to watch during their weekend!

13th Seed: Soniqs Imperative (US)

With both 13th Seed in the MDI and World 13th in Sanctum of Domination, hopefully nobody on the Soniqs Imperative roster is superstitious! Their team features some solid high key pushers from the North American scene, though they’ve swapped around their roster between the time trials and their tournament weekend - we’ll have to see if that helps or hurts them!

14th Seed: Zigounette Crew (EU)

This is a French speaking team comprised of several raiders from The Amazing Zoo, who are currently 9/10 Mythic. Like many teams around their seed, they 3-chested the Halls of Atonement but only 2-chested the De Other Side, but a good sign from them is their players’ ability to multiclass, with four of them swapping specs between the two dungeons, including several who main a completely different spec on the live servers, and two players swapping between Tank and DPS in their two dungeons.

15th Seed: Baguette with salo (EU)

This team includes several high key players and Mythic raiders from the Russian servers, and their time trial runs tell a similar story to the other teams around this seeding, with runs in the 2-chest rather than 3-chest range but with DPS players all swapping specs between the vastly different Fortified De Other Side and Tyrannical Halls of Atonement environments.

16th Seed: The Goose Club (EU)

Several members of The Goose Club raid with World 5th Method, and their time trials include a relatively quick 3-chest in Halls of Atonement but are weighed down by a much slower De Other Side that barely beat the 2-chest threshold. A good sign for them is that each dungeon featured relatively few attempts, so perhaps they can find lots of optimizations over more practice time.

17th Seed: Team Stiefbruders (EU)

A team of fresh faces to the MDI, watch out for some of the crazy comps that Team Stiefbruders pulled out during the Time Trials, including a double Mage (that’s allowed now, as long as they’re different specs, and was fairly common) PLUS a Survival Hunter in their De Other Side!

18th Seed: Pieces Donkeys (EU)

After a World 3rd showing in Sanctum of Domination, Pieces’ MDI team starts off at a sizable disadvantage with the 18th seed and two time trial runs in the 2-chest range. Their team’s runs featured very little multiclassing, with the only instance of it coming from their healer Kali (read her Community Spotlight here)

19th Seed: Apes Together Strong (EU)

More newcomers to MDI competition, Apes Together Strong put up solid 2-chest runs with very few attempts in their time trials. Their roster includes several players from Witness, an 8/10 Mythic guild that’s claimed Cutting Edge in Castle Nathria and looks poised to do so again in Sanctum. They ran the exact same composition in both Time Trials, using Guardian Druid, Holy Paladin, Havoc Demon Hunter, Affliction Warlock, and Shadow Priest, all strong specs but slightly divergent from the metagame choices like Mage.

20th Seed: John’s Army (EU)

Featuring raiders from the semi-hardcore guild Shroud, John’s Army are another team to make use of the Affliction Warlock in their Time Trial runs - they also played a Mistweaver monk and put up 2-chest performances, albeit barely, in both Time Trial dungeons.

21st Seed: Cri Hard with a Vengeance (US)

Another team of newcomers to the MDI, Cri Hard with a Vengeance put up solid 2-chests in both dungeons and their runs feature steady improvement over time as their strategy became more refined. Their team also appears to have its share of multiclassers and specialists. They seem to prefer a caster-heavy comp, with three caster DPS in each dungeon (including a Moonkin both times!)

22nd Seed: 4 Danes 1 Swede (EU)

4 Danes 1 Swede competed in the Keystone Masters Gauntlet back in the spring, a community event that featured some innovative rules and though they were eliminated from that event fairly early on, they have continued to play together and build up that often overlooked team synergy for several months now. With both an Elemental Shaman and a Balance Druid, they were able to barely 2-chest their De Other Side and solidly 2-chest their Halls of Atonement to qualify for the MDI!

23rd Seed: Outcast (EU)

This fresh team of new MDI competitors ran several distinctive picks in their Time Trial comp: Mistweaver Monk, Guardian Druid, Affliction Warlock, Havoc Demon Hunter, and Shadow Priest. Like several other of the lower seeded teams, they struggled with De Other Side, depleting the keystone along their path to pushing it up to +21, where they were able to score a 2-chest by the skin of their teeth.

24th Seed: Winning lane kick (EU)

The final team to qualify for this season’s MDI, Winning lane kick’s qualifying times were of course slower than the other 23 teams, but there are promising signs in those runs, including three-chested runs all along the pushing process and several players flexing between different specs. With very few total runs put on the leaderboard, this team may also have some gas left in the tank once the Group weekends begin!

About the Author

Dratnos hosts the The Titanforge WoW Podcast. He’s also an Officer in the World 36th guild poptart corndoG, and a commentator for events such as the MDI and the Race to World First! He streams on Twitch, where he likes to review his friends’ logs.