What Is Race to World First?
Race to World First (RWF) is the unofficial world championship of Mythic raiding: the first guild to kill a new raid tier's final boss on Mythic claims the World First title. It is not a Blizzard bracket tournament with seeding and prize pools — it is a community race that became a multi-day livestream event, with org broadcasts, casters, pull trackers, and sponsor integrations.
World First kills have existed since early WoW, but the modern broadcast format took off when 
Method livestreamed the 2018 Uldir race on Twitch (Method cites ~263k live viewers for that breakthrough). Today 
Liquid, 
Echo, and Method (plus CN and other NA/EU guilds) race in parallel while fans follow every percent on Raider.IO and Warcraft Logs.
Sources: Method — What is RWF?; Raider.IO / Warcraft Logs race hubs.
How an RWF Works (Heroic Week → Mythic)
Most modern tiers follow the same skeleton:
- Heroic week: Normal and Heroic open first. Guilds clear, learn fights, and start split runs — farming the same bosses on many characters to funnel loot onto the 20-player Mythic roster.
- Mythic week: Mythic usually opens one week later. Early bosses often fall in hours; mid/end bosses become multi-day walls with hundreds of pulls.
- Hall of Fame: Blizzard still awards in-game Hall of Fame recognition to the earliest Mythic end-boss clears (exact cap/rules have shifted by expansion — treat the prestige as the signal, not a cash prize).
- Economics: Consumables, repairs, BoE buys, and gold for crafts are a real race cost. There is no official Blizzard prize purse; top orgs run on sponsors (e.g. Alienware as Liquid's presenting partner for Midnight).
Midnight Season 1 was unusual: three launch raids (Voidspire, Dreamrift, March on Quel'Danas) with staggered Mythic opens, so the "race" was to 9/9 across the tier, not a single 8-boss instance. Boss lists and loot bands are in our Midnight raid guide.
Midnight Season 1 Recap — Liquid's Four-Peat
Liquid defeated 
Midnight Falls (L'ura) on April 6, 2026 for World First, after a razor-close race with Echo. Liquid's own recap cites 474 pulls on the final; Wowhead coverage rounds to 473. The defining storyline: Liquid "killed" the boss into a Mythic-only secret fourth phase (not on Heroic), handed Echo free intel overnight, then closed the race the next day on a near-perfect pull. Echo took World 2nd (~493 pulls on the final per Hotspawn; Warcraft Logs lists 494 on Midnight Falls); Method contested third (~502 pulls on the final per WCL).
This was Liquid's fourth consecutive RWF after Nerub-ar Palace, Liberation of Undermine, and Manaforge Omega.
| Date (2026) | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Mar 17 | Heroic week — Voidspire, Dreamrift, March on Quel'Danas open on Normal/Heroic |
| Mar 24 | Mythic opens for Voidspire + Dreamrift; early WFs (e.g. Melee Mechanics on Averzian, Nurfed on Vorasius) |
| Mar 25–27 | Liquid takes key WFs including Dreamrift's  Chimaerus, then Voidspire end boss  Crown of the Cosmos (Mar 27) |
| Mar 28–30 | Gap week — splits, reclears, Heroic prep while waiting on Mythic Quel'Danas |
| Mar 31 | Mythic March on Quel'Danas opens |
| Apr 3 | Liquid World First  Belo'ren (long wall; ~196 pulls — Blizzard Watch / WCL) |
| Apr 4–5 | Midnight Falls wall + secret-phase discovery / fake 0% |
| Apr 6 | Liquid World First L'ura (~474 pulls) — Midnight RWF over |
Sources: Team Liquid (Apr 7, 2026); Raider.IO Tier 35 coverage; Warcraft Logs RWF; Hotspawn / Blizzard Watch day logs.
Recent World First Winners
Hardest-difficulty final-boss World Firsts from Sepulcher through Midnight. Guild colors + icons: Liquid, Echo, Method (historical Method wins predate this table window).
| Raid | Year | Winner | Runner-up | Duration / notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sepulcher of the First Ones | 2022 | Echo WF | Liquid | Long modern race (Jailer) |
| Vault of the Incarnates | 2022 | Echo WF | Liquid | 11-day race; 258 pulls on Raszageth (Method recap) |
| Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible | 2023 | Liquid WF | — | Liquid's modern streak begins |
| Amirdrassil, the Dream's Hope | 2023 | Echo WF | Liquid | Tight Echo win |
| Nerub-ar Palace | 2024 | Liquid WF | — | TWW S1 — four-peat starts here |
| Liberation of Undermine | 2025 | Liquid WF | — | TWW S2 |
| Manaforge Omega | 2025 | Liquid WF | Echo (close) | Dimensius WF |
| Midnight S1 (VS / DR / MQD) | 2026 | Liquid WF | Echo | ~2 Mythic weeks; ~474 pulls on L'ura |
For the live Midnight DPS meta that these races shaped, see the Midnight tier list.
How to Watch and Track RWF
When a race is live, you do not need a ticket — you need tabs:
- Org streams: Twitch/YouTube for Team Liquid, Echo, and Method (player POVs + desk commentary).
- Progress trackers: Raider.IO global coverage (day blogs, pull counts) and the Warcraft Logs RWF tracker (top guilds, live standings, region/boss filters).
- Between races: VODs (Liquid Day 1–N archives, Method recaps) and community threads on r/CompetitiveWoW.
Between tiers, the same skill ceiling shows up in keys — our Mythic+ guide covers how the broader player base gears toward raid readiness.
Why Races Take 7–14 Days
Viewers often ask why the best players in the world need two weeks. Short answer: Mythic end bosses are designed as research projects, and the soft costs compound.
- Splits before and during Mythic burn calendar time so mains sit in better gear than a single lockout allows.
- Pull count walls (100–500+ on a final) mean days of learning — Midnight's secret phase literally added a full unknown fight mid-race.
- Gold and consumables: flasks, potions, food, enchants, repairs, and BoE snipes across a 20-man roster for 12–16 hour days are expensive even for sponsored guilds.
- Sleep / region offset: NA and EU trade the lead overnight; one region's "morning" is the other's progress window (exactly how Echo used Liquid's secret-phase discovery).
- Hotfixes and exploits: Blizzard can invalidate strategies mid-race; guilds plan comps with backup specs ready.
That is why clean kills look "easy" on the final pull — the two weeks before are the real product.
Next Race: Venomous Abyss Outlook
The next full Mythic RWF is expected on 
The Venomous Abyss, the eight-boss raid tied to Patch 12.1 Curse of Ula'tek / Midnight Season 2. Season 2 content goes live one week after 12.1 ships; Mythic for a single-raid season typically opens in week two of the season.
Status as of July 15, 2026: UPCOMING — not live. Wowhead published Patch 12.1 PTR Development Notes for Week of July 14th (class/tier tuning + Mythic Venomous Abyss raid testing still on PTR). A 12.1 campaign Chapter 1 lead-in was available from ~July 7 (Wowhead / Blizzard Watch) — that is not the full patch or Season 2. Blizzard has not published a confirmed 12.1 or Mythic open date. Ignore third-party headlines that equate the July 7 lead-in with a July 14 Season 2 launch. Community coverage still points to an August 2026 patch window. No live RWF streams yet.
Full S2 raid/dungeon picture: Midnight Season 2 guide. If you want the current-tier clears without a 20-man roster, browse raid runs.