Sepulcher of the First Ones Race to World First: Who’s alive, who’s dead, and who’s winning the race

The Race to World First for Sepulcher of the First Ones is now all but complete after over two weeks of sprinting to the finish. The top guilds from all around the world rampaged their way through the Sepulcher on Mythic difficulty, trying to be the first to reach — and more importantly, defeat — the Jailer on the hardest difficulty. Finally, we’ve gotten our champions — for the second raid in a row Echo has won the Race to World First!

Along the way they had to contend with a few different roadblocks. It turns out that Halondrus, the Reclaimer, had some other ideas about letting the riff-raff run around all willy-nilly. The giant mechanical crab held the line for the entire weekend and required 357 pulls from Team Liquid before it was defeated.

Anduin and the Lords of Dread provided the next major obstacle. Liquid were the first guild able to save the Dominated King of Stormwind, and Echo were able to put an end to the Dreadlords sinister machinations. Rygelon held them up for a little while, but even the stars in the universe can be snuffed as once again Echo took the kill before Liquid could.

With every other obstacle taken care of, Echo were the first guild in the world to reach the Jailer! They were also the first guild in the world to see his secret Mythic-only phase. It took them nearly 300 pulls but they were able to cleanly get all the way through the fight and put a stop to him.

What kind of preparation went into this race?

This is the event to look forward to with each patch we get in World of Warcraft. These guilds have spent countless hours preparing for this moment. Over the last two weeks, they’ve run countless M+ dungeons, killed dozens of normal and heroic bosses in the Sepulcher trying to get the right armor and weapons to drop, and have spent millions of gold paying for those items when they do drop.

The good news is that all of the preparation has been worth it. This is shaping up into an amazingly tight race, with lots of close attempts as they’ve gotten past the halfway point of the Sepulcher.

All of these top guilds are streaming their progress online, often with a cast of commentators. Some guilds will be streaming together like Echo and BDGG, while others like Method will be providing live music during their halftime show. Method has Jay the Tavern Bard coming on to perform for them! This is the first time that live music has been part of the RWF and I hope the trend continues as there are a lot of really talented Warcraft-inspired musicians out there.

I’m hoping that as this race gets into the final four bosses they wind up being a bit more consistent difficulty-wise than the end of Sanctum of Domination was. Anduin and the Jailer will likely require a lot of pulls, but I’m not counting out the whole last three bosses either. Since the Blizzard developers chose to withhold them from the PTR testing and none of the guilds have gotten the chance to see them in action yet, there could be a really interesting learning curve that happens as more guilds reach them.

In the last race, Echo took the top spot with Complexity-Limit (now Team Liquid) getting the silver medal. This time around the competition seems to have gotten even fiercer as I honestly feel that any of the top five guilds could potentially take the whole thing. Method and BDGG have been putting in a ton of work to get ready for this raid, while SK Pieces has always been a reliably strong competitor.

I’m very excited to see how close the final push through the Sepulcher is.

So who’s in the lead — and who’s falling behind? Here are the current Race to World First standings for all 11 bosses in the Sepulcher of the First Ones.

Vigilant Guardian

This fight is all about managing a bunch of robots all trying to kill you at once. This will be a fairly standard fight for the Race to World first, and it’s likely that Team Liquid and BDGG won’t even be done with their weekly reset power spikes (checking their Great Vault and running four Mythic Dungeons for a piece of heroic loot) by the time some of the other guilds have broken down the door to the Sepulcher.

Is Vigilant Guardian dead yet?

It took over a day for guilds to take down the first Sepulcher boss, but The Early Shift took the lead by taking down Vigilant Guardian on Wednesday, March 9, after 56 pulls. Liquid snagged the next kill just a few hours later, after spending a day and a half of splits to collect tier sets. With all that gear, Liquid steamrolled this boss in just three pulls.

1. The Early Shift on 3/9/2022
2. Team Liquid on 3/9/2022
3. Wizards and Monkeys on 3/9/2022

Skolex, the Insatiable Ravener

This worm is tired of being bait for someone’s fishing and is ready to make a meal out of the players. The room will quickly fill up with puddles of Devourer blood as every time Skolex repositions he’ll leave behind a pool of it. This means that on top of the tight fight timer, and high tank damage — guilds will also have to contend with a shrinking arena. Just like with the Vigilant Guardian though this is likely a fight that will be falling quickly as raiders set their sights on Dausegne or Xy’mox.

Is Skolex dead yet?

Skolex was killed pretty quickly after Vigilant Guardian fell. Liquid took this boss down after just two pulls.

1. Team Liquid on 3/9/2022
2. BDGG on 3/9/2022
3. Echo on 3/10/2022

Artificer Xy’mox

He’s back, with a whole new bag of tricks, and some old favorites. Artificer Xy’mox is a pretty hectic encounter and could be the first fight in the raid to require a few more pulls. Of course it’s also possible that the racers will head for Dausegne and the Prototype Pantheon’s wing first after clearing Skolex.

Is Xy’mox dead yet?

Liquid decided to go from Skolex straight to Xy’mox, and downed this difficult boss quite handily.

1. Team Liquid on 3/9/2022
2. Echo on 3/10/2022
3. Method on 3/10/2022

Dausegne, The Fallen Oracle

Nobody wants to know how Dausegne was made, but they’re more than happy to help put an end to her nefarious plans for the Jailer. She looks like more of a hard numbers fight. If the raiders don’t have the damage to destroy her summoned Domination Cores before they cover the ground in black goo or before she activates all of her pillars that launch Disintegration Halos — it doesn’t take an Oracle to see their demise.

Is Dausegne dead yet?

Proving they have the brains to get through the Xy’mox mechanics and the brawn to bring down Dausagne’s shields before being overwhelmed — Liquid has secured 4/11 Mythic and moved on to the Prototype Pantheon.

1. Team Liquid on 3/9/2022
2. Echo on 3/10/2022
3. Project on 3/10/2022

Prototype Pantheon

These prototypes of the various Covenant leaders may not be as put together as the real ones, but they still have enough juice to flatten unsuspecting raiders. The tanks for these guilds are the best in the world, and they’ll have to be in order to manage having all four prototypes up and attacking them for the final phase. There’s a lot happening for that last burn, and one foot out of position could be a costly mistake.

Is the Prototype Pantheon dead yet?

Team Liquid has proven that they’re better than any prototypes. After 33 pulls they took down this group of incomplete figures. Which does make me wonder what the fight would look like against all four of the fully complete Covenant Leaders. Especially when Sire Denathrius by himself took so much effort to kill.

1. Team Liquid on 3/10/2022
2. Echo on 3/10/2022
3. Method on 3/11/2022

Lihuvim, Principal Architect

It’s not often we see a boss get buffed after the first week of it being available to kill, but Lihuvim was given a little extra juice on all difficulties to bring it in line with being the first boss to drop tier armor that players will be killing.

Is Lihuvim dead yet?

Team Liquid beat up the Principal Architect after only 40 pulls. They leveraged four Balance Druids and two Survival Hunters to help keep a few of the Synthesized Acquisitions Automata in roots and traps for almost the entire fight. Why worry about them exploding and knocking you into the mines around the room if you never kill them!

Although, what I’m most surprised about is seeing a pair of Survival Hunters in their melee comp. It feels like a long long time since a Survival Hunter was in a World First kill.

1. Team Liquid on 3/10/2022
2. Echo on 3/11/2022
3. SK Pieces on 3/11/2022

Halondrus the Reclaimer

Looking like it just stepped out of a Protoss Gateway, Halondrus will test just how well the world’s top guilds can manage to juggle an ever-increasing amount of orbs. If any one of those orbs reaches the boss it’ll spell almost certain doom for the raiders. He’ll also probably see a shift to healers who can heal and move more easily since it has two long phases where the raid has to move with Halondrus or get knocked off into oblivion.

Is Halondrus dead yet?

Yes! After 357 pulls Team Liquid slew the giant crab robot, and Echo wasn’t far behind them with world second, and SK Pieces wasn’t far behind them with world third. Liquid will have to push extra hard to break through the Anduin wall and build their lead out.

1. Team Liquid on 3/14/2022
2. Echo on 3/15/2022
3. SK Pieces on 3/15/2022

Anduin Wrynn

After downing Halondrus, Anduin has proven to be another big hurdle for guilds. The developers on Warcraft have already nerfed some of his abilities to bring him more in line with the other fights, but he still throws out a truly prodigious amount of damage and there are many mechanics that need to be managed.

However, Liquid managed to snag the World First Anduin kill on Friday afternoon, in a dramatic pull where the tanks were the only ones left standing with Anduin at about 1% health. But Blood Death Knight Scott and Brewmaster Monk Twisted managed to hold on and take Anduin down.

Is Anduin dead yet?

1. Team Liquid on 3/18/2022
2. Echo on 3/18/2022
3. SK Pieces on 3/19/2022

Lords of Dread

It’s been about 20 years since he taunted us in the Warcraft 3 campaign and now we’re finally going to be putting the stake through his heart and getting our revenge. This is the first of the fights that weren’t tested on the PTR, so when the first guild does reach these fearsome Dreadlords and Mal’Ganis’ epic mutton chops they’ll have a bit of learning to do.

Is Mal’Ganis dead yet?

Echo gets the world’s first kill with an almost all melee damage comp for the fight. They brought five(!) Survival Hunters and still just barely beat the boss, killing it almost a minute after the enrage timer. Liquid killed it three and a half hours after them, after considering the fight close to impossible the night before.

1. Echo on 3/19/2022
2. Team Liquid on 3/19/2022
3. SK Pieces 3/22/2022

Rygelon

This fight looks to borrow a few of the mechanics from Algalon back in Ulduar. This could be a whole new Warcraft generation’s first experience with some of those interactions and I can’t wait to see the awesome power of the cosmos smite a few unready players. Like the Lords of Dread and the Jailer Ryegelon wasn’t tested on the PTR so it’ll be an interesting learning experience as the first guilds reach him.

Is Rygelon dead yet?

It took Echo 204 pulls but they managed to defeat the very cosmic forces of gravity and quasars to be the first guild in the world to reach the Jailer. Team Liquid followed suit a few hours later after several very low % wipes to Rygelon. Now it all comes down to the fight over the Jailer. Two guilds almost evenly matched ready to throw everything they have into saving the World (of Warcraft).

1. Echo on 3/21/2022
2. Team Liquid on 3/21/2022
3. SK Pieces on 3/22/2022

The Jailer

The Jailer is the big question mark of this whole raid. Not much is known about his fight beyond what’s available in the dungeon journal as like the Lords of Dread and Rygelon they weren’t tested on the PTR. We do know that something in his fight involves Azeroth and crushing the planet, so I hope that someone is able to defeat him as I would hate to have to find a new planet for my characters to call home — all of their stuff is on Azeroth!

Is the Jailer dead yet?

Yes! Echo gets the victory for the second raid tier in a row! It took them 277 pulls. They were the first guild in the world to see the secret Mythic-only phase and managed to learn it and execute it amazingly quickly. He died in a fairly quick amount of pulls, but the Sepulcher Race to World First has been the longest Race since Blackwing Descent.

Congratulations to them!

1. Echo on 3/26/2022
2. Method on 3/39/2022
3. Not killed yet

There are still seven guilds who are all progressing on the Jailer right now, we’ll see who can pick up the silver and bronze medals in this race over the next few days.

Originally published 3/8/2022, updated 3/28/2022