The War Within Season 1: MDI Group A Preview

By Seliathan — Nov 1 15:00 UTC

The first MDI season of The War Within is HERE! The Time Trials have concluded, the 16 qualifying teams have been determined, and the action starts NOW!

This weekend, we’ll watch Group A battle it out to determine which three teams will secure tickets to the Global Finals! Read on for a brief overview of the MDI format, info on each of the Group A teams, and our predictions for this weekend’s tournament.

The War Within’s Season 1 MDI starts at 10am PST / 6pm CET this weekend, and you can watch it live 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 with our MDI Highlights page!

MDI Format
Group A Teams Preview

Group A Predictions

MDI Format

Throughout Dragonflight, we saw a few changes to the MDI format, and these improvements remain in play for this first MDI of The War Within as well. We are down from 24 teams to 16, with only two group stages before the Global Finals begin. 3 teams from each group stage will advance, with the remaining 2 slots for the 8-team Global Finals coming from China.

You heard that right: for the first time in years, we will be seeing two competitors from the Chinese region again! Their Time Trials and group stage will be handled separately without an English live broadcast, so their teams will come into the finals as a deadly dark horse duo!

Teams are still required to field 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 3 DPS, with no duplicate specs, no teleporting out of the dungeon, and no pulling through walls or other tricks unless they have been cleared with the admins first. Despite these restrictions, however, we still anticipate a wealth of new and shiny tricks from the teams to try and gain a competitive edge!

TWW MDI Season 1 Rules

Group A Teams Preview

With only three teams qualifying per group stage, Group A promises to have a heavily contested third place, while the top two spots are likely already spoken for. Perplexed have had an incredible showing during the Time Trials, beating out all other teams by over a minute, and showcasing comps that other teams then tried out themselves multiple times.

Missed Count will likely end up snagging that 2nd place spot, as the team has plenty of MDI and TGP experience by this point, and we’ve seen them take their competition by surprise in previous tournaments as well. With some excellent play, we may even see Missed Count take the #1 spot from Perplexed, who have had some hit-and-miss performances in previous events.

Beyond these two veteran teams, we have a lot of newcomers in this group, so the third and final spot for Global Finals might go to a team we have not yet seen on the global stage. To better prepare you for the upcoming showdown, let’s look into each and every one of the competitors and how they performed so far!

In typical Perplexed fashion, the MDI and TGP veterans have had a fantastic showing during this season’s Time Trials, blowing the rest of the competition out of the water. After just barely missing Dragonflight’s Season 4 TGP Global Finals, the team seems to be back with a vengeance. Beating out Mandatory, the reigning MDI champions, by over a full minute, Perplexed sure seem to be on fire for the first MDI season of The War Within.

They scored a sub 10 minute Necrotic Wake, after bringing a new comp into play halfway through the Time Trials, and their City of Threads timer of 12:18 was lightning fast as well. In both dungeons, the team ended up playing a comp that slightly deviated from the best we’ve seen up until then, so they sure are ready to experiment, and they may even have a sneaky strat or two up their sleeves!

The big question for Perplexed, as always, is which Perplexed actually shows up for the group stage and Global Finals? The team is known for having a few not-so-great performances once in a while, but if they keep up the gameplay we’ve seen during the Time Trials, a #1 spot in Group A seems exceedingly likely.

Missed Count are no strangers to MDI esports competitions at this point, and hopefully they will not repeat the problems they had during last season, where they literally missed count. The team has made a slight roster change since then, bringing in Crims who previously played with both Mandatory and Pedros Per Hour, to replace Hearthjacks.

Missed Count wound up 4th during the Time Trials, with a total combined timer of 25:05, almost a full 3 minutes behind Perplexed; without knowing how much time either team actually spent trying to improve their dungeon runs, however, there’s no way to know how (un-)evenly matched the teams will end up being for the Group A showdown, which makes things all the more exciting for the upcoming weekend!

Polish Mountain are one of the newcomers during this MDI circuit, and boy have they had an explosive showing during the Time Trials! With a final timer of 26:04, they were only a minute behind the veterans from Missed Count, which is a remarkable performance considering the team has almost no MDI experience whatsoever.

The team name itself stems from an oft-repeated Twitch chat meme, “POLSKA GUROM”, which roughly translates to “Poland on top”. And what better way to get there, than to climb the leaderboard of their first MDI Time Trials! Their expressed goal for this season is to qualify for Global Finals, and coming in as the third highest seed in Group A, that certainly seems possible! They will have to dispatch a few similarly strong teams first, however, and the fight for the three Global Finals qualification spots will be a tough one, especially for players who are new to the MDI live-event environment.

Dire Wolves, the #8 team from the Time Trials, are another top contender for a Global Finals qualification. The team is a mix of MDI veterans, with two players who previously played under the same Dire Wolves banner, as well as a few newcomers to the MDI circuit.

This mix of old and new blood seems to be working in their favor, as Dire Wolves ended up with a final timer of 26:59, 55 seconds behind Polish Mountain. Despite this small differential, the teams finished in 5th and 8th spot respectively, showcasing how evenly matched the field ended up being in this range, and with only 6 spots being available to teams for the Global Finals, Dire Wolves are certainly facing a tough climb to the top.

Brain On Cooldown come into this event as the #9 seed, and we’re expecting an intense first series from them, as they will have to match up against Dire Wolves. The #8 and #9 teams ended up being only 22 seconds apart from one another, and while those noggins may be on cooldown, they do have a few MDI veteran brains on the team.

Two of the Brain on Cooldown players previously played in the team Witness Cuties, a fan favorite at the time, and bolstered with some RWF experience from Method’s Huntoper, they may just be able to take this first match of their Group A run. We can’t wait to see how the two teams fare against one another!

Team Name may not have had the most ingenious idea when it came to their, well, team name, but they did end up snagging a good Time Trial spot, coming in 13th with a final timer of 28:12. While this puts them over 6 minutes behind the #1 spot, Perplexed, Team Name only have to come in third to make it to Global Finals this weekend, and the French squad may just be able to do so, since their runs were only about two minutes behind the third and fourth highest seeded teams of the group.

With how quickly the tide can turn during a live event, Team Name simply need to play it clean and hope for a mistake from their competitors; we have seen time and time again that this is a game plan that has worked for many teams in the past, even if it may not be enough to claim a championship crown. While none of the players have any previous MDI experience, this also means that there is no pressure to perform, and we can’t wait to see how Team Name will show up in their first match against Polish Mountain.

This Is Almost Fine are another new team on the scene, but some of their players may ring some bells. Three of their players have some previous competitive experience: Mky played in team Sloth before, while Tmy played in Who Let Them Cook?, and Wolf previously played competitive PUBG and Overwatch. This collective competitive experience may give This is Almost Fine a bit of an edge over many of the newcomers, as the live-event environment of MDI can add additional stressors for completely inexperienced players when things inevitably go wrong in the midst of a livestreamed run.

With a final timer of 28:18, This is Almost Fine are not too far behind the remaining competition, at least not the teams that may end up trying to go for the third qualification spot. Their first match against Missed Count will be a trial by fire, and we can’t wait to see how they fare against the MDI veterans.

Kasps Angels made it into the tournament just by a hair, and they will certainly be coming into the event as the underdogs. The Norwegian squad started playing together in Legion, and they first attempted a run through the MDI circuit in Dragonflight Season 3. They ended up coming in 23rd back then, which would’ve given them a group stage placement under the old format, but it was not meant to be. Yet…

This time around, Kasps Angels found themselves as the 17th place team at the completion of Time Trials, and with one of the teams dropping out, they swept in with glee to join the rest of the teams for Group A. With a final timer of 29:58, they are quite far behind the competition, but the Angels’ goal is to have fun first and foremost, and maybe, with a little RNG magic, the team will bring us our first MDI upset of the group, season, and expansion!

Group A Predictions

Only three teams from Group A will be qualifying for the Global Finals. Perplexed and Missed Count seem like guaranteed candidates for two of those spots, with their wealth of experience and great Time Trial performances. The third spot is up for grabs, and with half the teams of Group A being separated by just about 2 minutes of time, this third spot could go to almost any one of them.

Consistency and clean play will likely be the key to success, and it is hard to say which one of the remaining six teams will end up coming out on top. While the top spots may not be as exciting to watch, Day 2 of the event will be a slaughter, as we say goodbye to four of the eight teams on that day.

One of the most important things to keep an eye on this time around is the class composition for each of the teams, as well as the ability to multiclass. With the arrival of the World of Warcraft 20th Anniversary Patch, and the multiple hotfix patches following, many classes saw sweeping changes to numbers and talents both last week and this week; it is STILL tough to say which comp may end up best for each of the individual dungeons. Multiclassing at a high level will be an important factor in this group stage, and we expect either Brain On Cooldown or This Is Almost Fine to have a slight edge due to their previous MDI experience.

As for the remaining teams, we would certainly love to see them upset one of the veteran squads, but if history is anything to go by, we have rarely, if ever, seen it happen. Still, you’d better join us on Friday at 10 AM PST/6 PM CET for Group A of The War Within’s Season 1 MDI, to see how it all plays out!

Thanks for reading our Group A Preview, and be sure to visit the OFFICIAL The War Within Mythic Dungeon International Season 1 Hub for info on the rules, prizes, teams, and the LIVE events coverage!

About the Authors

Seliathan has been playing Rogue for over half his life, since the initial release of WoW over 19 years ago. After a long career of Raid Leading, Theorycrafting, and pushing Mythic+, Seliathan enjoys creating all kinds of PvE content on Twitch, co-hosting the Tricks of the Trade Rogue podcast, contributing to Raider.IO as Staff Writer, and writing guides for Icy Veins.

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.

About the Editor

Gogogadgetkat has been playing WoW since late BC, and has been the GM of her guild Propaganda since its creation in 2014. As a career healer, Kat has a number of CEs and old-school heroic kills under her belt, all on a variety of healing classes and specs—she’s a serial altoholic! In addition to Mythic raiding and a little Mythic+, creating safe, inclusive spaces in gaming is her longtime passion; Kat has been an admin for the Perky Pugs community since late BfA, and is also a founding council member and the Executive Director for the DEIBAJ initiative VISAGE. She is excited to bring her wealth of experience and love of writing to the Raider.IO team.