MDI Season 3 Finals Spotlight: MONKA

By Hulahoops — Jul 9 2022 00:00 HKT

Blizzard recently announced that Shadowlands Season 4 will be launching in the first week of August; but before we can look at what the new Season will bring, we still need to determine the MDI Champions of Season 3! The Global Finals are taking place this weekend where the best 8 teams from around the world will be vying for dungeon-racing dominance! Be sure to tune in on the official World of Warcraft YouTube Channel starting this Friday at 10am PDT / 7pm CEST.

If you can’t watch the tournament live but want to stay on top of the action, we’ll be providing real-time updates and analysis throughout the entire Global Finals over on our MDI Highlights page. Don’t miss a beat!

A lot of time and effort goes into being an MDI competitor, and the players put their hearts and souls into this esport. Today, we’re bringing you a little insight into just what it’s like preparing for and competing in the MDI on the big stage with this spotlight on MONKA!

Team Members
Team History
Season 3 So Far
Q & A

MONKA: The Globetrotters

Team Members

MONKA is an interesting mixture of players that have played on various teams in the MDI, sometimes against each other, that have combined with some MDI newcomers to create a brand new squad. The team is currently made up of 3 players with MDI experience under their belts in Skylark, Moadmoad and Maystine, and 2 brand-new competitors in Crims and Rxn.

Skylark is a tank who has been in MDI competition since 2018, most notably as one of the longest-standing and most successful players coming out of the Oceanic (OCE) region. Up until joining MONKA, Skylark has played on teams made up almost entirely of OCE players, but it appears that for Season 3 of Shadowlands he has opted to join a team of European players. We can only imagine what kind of sleep schedule Skylark has had to adopt for practice sessions! A raider in OCE-based guild Entropy, Skylark has long been a fixture of the MDI and the high Mythic+ key-pushing community.

MONKA’s healer is Moadmoad, well-known for being one of the most prolific Priest healers in the high Mythic+ community. He is also known for maining a Priest in live keys over the years even when they were considered one of the weaker healers in dungeons. However, Moadmoad swiftly put any claims of him being a one-trick to rest in the MDI when he astutely picked up other healers like Holy Paladin and performed exceptionally well.

Read Moadmoad’s Player Spotlight from BFA here!

Maystine is the third member of MONKA with notable MDI experience, and is one of the team’s DPS players. He is a French player who raids in Impact, and is well-known for pushing high keys on live servers. At the time of writing, he is actually the highest rated Feral Druid on the Mythic+ leaderboards! Maystine and Moadmoad both began competing in the MDI together at the start of Shadowlands on the team Does Gargoyle Stream?

MONKA’s roster is rounded out by MDI newcomers Rxn and Crims, both in DPS roles. They have already impressed in their very first MDI outing, and we are excited to see more of them this weekend in the Global Finals! We think they are definitely going to be players to keep an eye on in this and future tournaments.

Team History

MONKA is a newly formed team this Season, but as mentioned above, 3 of the players on the team do have some MDI experience. Moadmoad and Maystine have both been competing in the MDI since Season 1 of Shadowlands. Back in the first Season of this expansion, the format was a bit different. Instead of 24 teams qualifying for the 3 Group Cup weekends via 1 Time Trial, there were 4 different Cup weekends, all with their own qualifying Time Trials. Moadmoad and his team Does Gargoyle Stream? qualified for Global Cup 1 and made it through to the Quarter Finals in their first outing.

Global Cup 2 of Season 1 is when Maystine joined the team, and Does Gargoyle Stream? made it one step further into the Lower Semis before they were eliminated by PI Me. In Cup 3, they were again not able to make it past the Quarter Finals, and unfortunately in Cup 4, they were eliminated in 2 straight match-ups. However, by qualifying for each of the 4 Global Cups, Does Gargoyle Stream? earned a berth into the Season 1 Global Finals! Not every team makes it all the way to the Global Finals in their first outing in the MDI, so that alone was an impressive start for Moadmoad and Maystine.

The team was renamed Omega Pump in Season 2 of Shadowlands, and while they qualified for the Group C cup by earning the 5th seed from the Time Trials, they unfortunately did not qualify for the Global Finals. Season 3 will be their chance at MDI redemption!

Skylark certainly has the most MDI experience on MONKA, having been in the competition since 2018 when he competed with a team named Gulch Trotters. He took the 2 Seasons in 2019 off and returned for BFA Season 4 in 2020 with Ethical. They had solid showings in the various Cups leading up to the Global Finals, including a couple of 2nd place finishes. They finished off the Season after getting knocked out during the Quarter Finals in the final tournament.

In Season 1 of Shadowlands, Skylark played on the team Obey Alliance. They qualified for each of the Cup weekends, and earned a berth to the Global Finals where they finished the tournament in 4th place. In fact, their very first match-up of the Season 1 Global Finals was against now-teammates Moadmoad and Maystine! Skylark remained with Obey Alliance in Season 2 as well, making it yet again to the Global Finals but being eliminated in the Quarter Finals.

Season 3 So Far

As a brand new team, MONKA has done incredibly well in their first Season together! They earned the 4th seed in the Time Trials, and went on to come first in the Group B weekend, where they managed to sweep MDI veterans, Perplexed, in a decisive 2-0 victory! Despite losing a Sanguine Depths map against Perplexed earlier that day, MONKA came back in the Group B Finals with a vengeance, taking the win:

This earned them their berth into the Global Finals this weekend where they are 3rd seed and will be facing off against W OMEGALUL in their first match-up.

Q & A

Now that we’ve provided you with some backstory on MONKA, we wanted to delve a little deeper and learn more about what it’s truly like to compete in the MDI. We asked the players a handful of questions about life in the MDI, and this is what they had to say.

Q-1: How do you cope with the pressure, stress, and anxiety of competing on a World Stage, both as an individual and within your team?

Moadmoad: The anxiety/stress excites me; it doesn’t wear me down. It’s how I perform best. I’m excited to play in tournaments.

Crims: I feel way less pressured when I am convinced that me and my team covered everything in training so that the dungeon feels like second nature and we are prepared for every single thing that could go wrong in a dungeon.

Rxn: I’m a pretty chill person, but I can get a bit stressed during the tournament. I like the thrill of competing though, it’s exciting. I don’t really need a way to cope

Q-2: What role do people outside of your team (partner, family, friends, etc.) play in supporting you as an MDI competitor?

Moadmoad: Mostly my WoW friends encourage me.

Rxn: My family asks me how it’s going sometimes and they seem happy about me playing in the MDI.

Q-3: How do you maintain your mental and physical health during the MDI Season, especially in situations where you or your team don’t perform as desired?

Moadmoad: When the keys are out, that’s all that’s on my mind. I try to get more physically fit before it all begins. The passion to play is more than enough to keep playing the whole time. Luckily, my team makes it very fun to play as well so it doesn’t wear me down at all when things go wrong.

Crims: I always make sure to try and control myself in situations where practice doesn’t go as planned. I've learned that eventually, we will always find a solution to a problem that makes us “wipe” or “go slower”.

Rxn: I take breaks sometimes and go outside for a bit.

Q-4: Describe a typical MDI Competition day for you. Do you have any routines or rituals you follow? Any superstitions? Anything you make sure you do the night before?

Moadmoad: I try to be as rested as I can, make sure I eat well, and I often try to take a cold shower a few hours prior to competing. During the competition, I often listen to the same song on repeat — songs that serve to get my energy up and don’t have anything distracting about them.

Crims: I don’t really have any special preparations, I just make sure that nothing distracts me IRL during that time. I also make sure that I wake up fully rejuvenated on the competition day.

Rxn: I don’t do anything special other than trying to be well rested before the tournament. I try to get as much sleep as possible.

Q-5: What do you look for in your teammates? What are the important traits to being a good teammate? Why did you decide to join your current team?

Moadmoad: Passion for the game, eagerness to learn, creativity, and taking personal responsibility. All of these things I value highly. Basically, an ideal teammate is someone who always wants to perform better and knows how to reflect. Besides that, I value friendship very highly and I think it’s one of the strengths of our team.

Crims: The team was formed this year. My friend and a teammate that I have been playing high keys on live since season 1 Shadowlands, Moadmoad, asked me if I would like to try MDI and said that he already had a plan on who to play with. He had high hopes for us, so I accepted the offer without a second thought!

I personally think that the most important traits for a teammate to have are the desire to succeed and constant willingness to improve, whether it’s playing a class or improving your behavior as a teammate. I value it a lot when my teammate is able to objectively judge other player’s gameplay and take inspiration from it to form his own opinions, implementing what could be good and helping our team succeed.

Rxn: Patience, respect for other teammates, and the ability to not take things too seriously when it’s not going your way.

Q-6: If you have been playing in the MDI for a number of years, what is it that keeps you competitive and passionate about the esport? If you are newer to the MDI, what motivated you to join?

Moadmoad: Every competition helps me grow as a player and that makes it fun, even when we don’t finish first.

Crims: I am new to the MDI and I have played games competitively since I was a child. The fact that I am spending a lot of time playing Mythic+ paired together with an offer from Moad, my competitive spirit and curiosity have inspired me to participate in this tournament.

Rxn: I was asked by Moad if I wanted to join the team and play the MDI. I didn’t plan on ever doing the MDI in the past — mostly because I didn’t think I would perform well and I had no real team for it. When Moad asked me and I heard who I’d be playing with, I thought we could have a real chance of competing with the best teams, so I said yes.

About the Authors

Hulahoops has been playing WoW since Vanilla. She has recently shelved Retail to go back and re-experience TBC in all its glory, but will one day make her way back to the Shadowlands. In her hey-day, Hulahoops could be found raid-leading in Mythic Progression, or competing in the MDI with her team Angry Toast. Hulahoops is a Holy Paladin in every sense of the term: she moderates the Hammer of Wrath Paladin Class Discord, and she was a practicing Lawyer for 7 years. Judgment isn't just a spell! Hulahoops decided to put the law books away and follow her passion for gaming and esports by joining the team at Raider.IO. In her capacity as General Manager, Hulahoops oversees events, content, and more!

Picco is an old-fashioned WoW gamer that started back in Vanilla and has played ever since. She is a healer by heart and is currently maining Restoration Druid. She loves Mythic+ and has a great passion for events like the MDI and TGP. Picco is part of the KeystoneMasters team and enjoys jiggling around with ideas for fun new formats of community tournaments. She is also a Mod for several streamers and guilds, particularly during the RWF. Outside of WoW, Picco is a Sprout in FF14, where she explores with her Lala Summoner.