Race to World First Day 7: On to Queen Ansurek!

One week in to the Race to World First for Nerub’ar Palace, Team Liquid has taken the World First kill on Silken Court and put in a few pulls on Queen Ansurek before calling it a day. But now it’s maintenance day in North America, and the planned three hour maintenance has already been extended into a five hour maintenance, which could cut into Liquid’s raid day, particularly if it’s extended further.

This has allowed Echo to catch up — and even pull ahead. The team spent most of its raid day getting its own Silken Court kill, but is getting in a few pulls on Ansurek before the end of the raid day. Echo has taken the lead on the fight with a low pull of 78%, but it’s too early to call a winner yet. The guild seems to be planning to turn in early to be well rested for the EU reset.

The question for both of these guilds is what they’ll be doing after maintenance: will they reclear Mythic Nerub-ar for more gear, or will they lock the Ansurek fight and keep working on it? Certainly another week of gear will make Ansurek easier to tackle, but it will also take time — particularly if either guild gets stuck on a fight they previously cleared. But right now neither guild is close to an Ansurek kill, and the extra gear may be more valuable than the time. I suspect we’ll see more Heroic splits and a Mythic reclear after NA and EU resets. If these teams have a clear idea of the raid composition they want for Ansurek — both have switched up the raid composition quite a few times during this race — they may want to get some different characters geared up this reset.

Method and Huoguo Hero continue to progress on Silken Court. Method is pretty close, with a low pull of 15%, while Huoguo (which was well behind the top three in taking out Ky’veza) only has a low pull of 77%. Silken Court is a tough coordination check for guilds — we talked more about the fight in yesterday’s recap — and it takes practice to get the mechanics down. Practice means pulls, and pulls take time.

However, on lower difficulty levels, the Silken Court fight felt easier than the Ansurek fight. We’ve only seen a handful of pulls on Mythic Ansurek so far, and it’s hard to say whether guilds will clear the final fight faster than Silken Court or Ky’veza. And there’s always the possibility there’s a Mythic-only phase that we won’t see until guilds get Ansurek much lower.

For now, here’s where things stand in the Nerub-ar Palace Race to World First.

The state of the race

Current Nerub-ar Palace rankings

1. Echo (7/8), with 78% on Queen Ansurek after 4 pulls
2. Team Liquid (7/8) with 84% on Queen Ansurek after 4 pulls
3. Method (6/8) with 15% on Silken Court after 158 pulls
4. 火鍋英雄 (Huoguo Hero) (6/8) with 74% on Silken Court after 45 pulls
5. 佶天鸿 (Jitianhong) (5/8) with 11% on Ky’veza after 262 pulls

Bosses killed: Ulgrax, Bloodbound Horror, Sikran, Rasha’nan, Ovi’nax, Ky’veza, Silken Court

Want to watch along with us? Here are the streams to follow to watch the Race to World First live. Or check our written coverage of day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, and day 6.