Race to World First Day 13: Echo and Method cross the finish line

And the Nerub’ar Palace World Second and World Third kills have been claimed by Echo and Method respectively. These two guilds pushed for a Queen Ansurek kill late into the evening yesterday, with Echo going several hours past its usual end time, making for a 19 hour day of raiding. But rest was the right call: Echo and Method both got their kills not too long after starting up for the day, claiming second and third place in the Race to World First.

While Liquid killed Queen Ansurek in 404 pulls, the rest took a bit longer: Echo had 449 pulls and Method had 425. While Liquid maintained a steady lead for most of the race, the race for second place has been a bit closer. Method hasn’t managed to win a World First since the guild fell apart due to a sexual abuse scandal, and most of its members left to form Echo. Method rebuilt almost from scratch, with a new focus on keeping its every member of its team accountable, and today it’s one of the rare top-tier raid teams to include a woman on its roster — though all of these guilds have women casters (and possibly women in other, off-screen roles). If Method had taken out Silken Court a bit faster, it might have been able to snag World Second on this fight.

But I don’t want to diminish the hard work all of these guilds have put in over the past two weeks (not to mention all the prep-work that would have been needed in advance): it’s no small task to place in the top ranks, and I think it’s really fun to watch teams play at that level.

There are still guilds fighting to take out Ansurek

Right now there are six guilds fighting Queen Ansurek, and every time I look they’ve switched place in the rankings. But 火鍋英雄 (Huoguo Hero) remains well ahead of the pack, with Ansurek down to 15%. Behind them, End Myth, FatSharkYes, 佶天鸿 (Jitianhong), and ZboX are all within a percent of each other, while Instant Dollars has only started working on Ansurek. Huoguo seems certain to snag fourth place, but fifth is completely up in the air at this point.

Behind this group, the rest of the race is stuck on Ky’veza or earlier. Let’s take a look at the current rankings in the Race to World First for Nerub-ar Palace, including all of the guilds up to Queen Ansurek.

The state of the race

Current Nerub-ar Palace rankings

1. Team Liquid wins World First after 404 pulls!
2. Echo wins World Second after 449 pulls!
3. Method wins World Third after 425 pulls!
4. 火鍋英雄 (Huoguo Hero) with 15.94% on Ansurek after 443 pulls
5. End Myth with 63.75% on Ansurek after 83 pulls
6. FatSharkYes with 64.54% on Ansurek after 62 pulls
7. 佶天鸿 (Jitianhong) with 64.92% on Ansurek after 241 pulls
8. ZboX with 65.13% on Ansurek after 203 pulls
9. Instant Dollars with 91.32% on Ansurek after 1 pull

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

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, day 6, day 7, day 8, day 9, day 10, day 11, and day 12.