This weekend marked the conclusion of the Shadowlands Season 3 MDI Global Finals, where teams battled it out for the coveted first-place title. Congratulations go to Echo for their FIFTH consecutive MDI victory!

In this article, we will showcase some of the most notable and/or innovative routes seen for each dungeon in the 2022 Global Finals. If you’re feeling brave, we will also provide importable MDT strings so that you and your teams can try these strategies for yourselves!

As far as route innovations go, it is sometimes difficult to know which teams come up with ideas first given the nature of broadcasted competition and route-sharing among the WoW community. This article is not aimed towards perfect accreditation towards original ideas, but to show the best routes and performances that we saw in the MDI Global Finals of Season 3.

Ready to see some of the quickest dungeon routes from the Shadowlands Season 3 MDI Global Finals? Read on!

Table of Contents

DE OTHER SIDE

This weekend, we saw an incredibly close De Other Side match between Echo and MONKA in the Semi-Finals. While Echo secured the win with a 19:05 time, MONKA was inches behind. In fact, MONKA was on track to beat the reigning champions by several seconds, but it all came down to a missed totem on the final boss, Mueh’zala. This error gave Echo just enough of a lead to take the map off MONKA in the end, since it forced MONKA to have one more intermission phase than Echo.

Echo and MONKA’s speedy routes were nearly identical when they went head-to-head in the Semi-Finals with a few small differences. Check out their De Other Side strategies below!


Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Inspiring, Quaking, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 19:26
Deaths: 0




Team: MONKA
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Inspiring, Quaking, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 19:05
Deaths: 1

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HALLS OF ATONEMENT

In the MDI Global Finals, we saw most teams ban Halls of Atonement from their map pools. This was likely due to the dungeon’s relative volatility and small margin for errors on a tight timer. However, we saw Donuts and Despair take a Halls of Atonement map with 1 death against Baldy on Day 1 of the series. Check out their winning route below!


Team: DONUTS AND DESPAIR
Keystone Level: +24
Affix Combo: Fortified, Spiteful, Necrotic, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 14:24
Deaths: 1

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MISTS OF TIRNA SCITHE

Mists of Tirna Scithe is unique in that, each time this dungeon is run, there is a different path through the maze that players must quickly deduce in real-time. In the MDI, players do not know what the correct pathing will be in advance, but teams running against each other are given the same available path. In this way, variations in Mists routes have a degree of improvisation involved each time it is run. However, experienced teams know which extra packs can be pulled through the maze at various points in order to achieve maximum efficiency of cleave and enemy forces count between the first and second bosses.

In the Global Finals, Echo had the quickest Mists performance, coming in with a time of 13:16. Alternatively, an interesting thing we saw in Donuts and Despair's Mists route on Day 2 was the use of what caster Xyronic called the “Echo Tech”, where their Warlock put down a Demonic Gateway for the group to skip down the ramp after Mistcaller rather than waiting for the roleplay (RP) and jumping down the waterfall as usual. This is certainly not the first time we’ve seen this skip, as players on live servers do sometimes head down the hill in this fashion — particularly when a Paladin is present since they provide Crusader Aura for extra mounted movement speed. Although this skip only shaves approximately 3-4 seconds off of a Mists route, every second can count in the MDI!

Want to see this small skip in action? Watch Donuts and Despair do it below!




Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +24
Affix Combo: Fortified, Bolstering, Quaking, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 13:16
Deaths: 0




Team: DONUTS AND DESPAIR
Keystone Level: +24
Affix Combo: Fortified, Bolstering, Quaking, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 14:24
Deaths: 0

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PLAGUEFALL

This weekend in the Global Finals, the quickest Plaguefall performances came from Echo and MONKA. MONKA’s first Plaguefall performance was against W OMEGALUL on Day 1, where they won the map with a time of 14:39 compared to W OMEGALUL’s 15:00. However, Day 3 showed an incredible matchup between MONKA and Echo, where MONKA came out on top with a time of 14:11 and 0 deaths, beating their own previous time by a whopping 28 seconds. Echo and MONKA’s routes had slight variations in favor of MONKA. This was a surprising upset for Echo, given that they have historically shown a particular dominance in their Plaguefall routes throughout the previous MDI tournaments of Shadowlands.

However, Echo came back with a bang against MONKA in the last match of the Grand Finals, winning Plaguefall with the quickest run, clocking in at 13:45 with no deaths on the board and securing their 5th consecutive MDI Global Finals victory.

Curious about the differences between the top two Plaguefall routes seen in the Global Finals? Check out their strategies below!


Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +25
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Raging, Volcanic, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 13:45
Deaths: 0




Team: MONKA
Keystone Level: +25
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Raging, Volcanic, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 14:39
Deaths: 1

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SANGUINE DEPTHS

On Day 2 of the Global Finals, we saw W OMEGALUL crush Echo’s Sanguine Depths time with an amazing 11:56 with no deaths. However, on Day 3, MONKA took a Sanguine Depths map off of Echo with a record-breaking 11:43 run!

When comparing MONKA, Echo, and W OMEGALUL’s routes and group compositions, we can see a few differences. Unlike the other teams, MONKA replaced Blood Death Knight with Vengeance Demon Hunter to utilize its sigils and 5% Magic buff via Chaos Brand to the party. Additionally, both MONKA and W OMEGALUL opted to use a Subtlety Rogue in place of a Windwalker Monk compared to Echo. While spectators were skeptical of the Rogue choice due to the way that the class looks on the overall damage meters, it is worth pointing out that the reason to use a Rogue is for funnel, single-target damage, and to open up the Venthyr Anima Cages for Sinful Boon stacks, allowing the Warlock to stand and blast damage unhindered. While a Rogue won’t look as shiny on the overall meters as a Warlock, Survival Hunter, or Windwalker Monk, they serve to complement the damage needs of the party by taking care of dangerous mobs with massive single-target throughput while the other classes clean up on AoE. Despite Echo having 2 deaths in their Sanguine Depths matchup against MONKA instead of 0, some of the most significant advantages came from MONKA’s compositional choices to use Vengeance Demon Hunter and Subtlety Rogue, and their utterly clean execution of this notoriously punishing dungeon.

It is also worth noting that, if Echo had not had 2 deaths in their Sanguine Depths run against MONKA, MONKA’s win may have been more contested. When there are deaths that occur in Sanguine Depths, it can significantly impact the stacks and timings of refreshes on the Venthyr “lantern” buff, Sinfall Boon. Because of this, Echo’s 2 deaths appeared to account for a pretty significant time loss compared to MONKA.

Anothing thing worth mentioning is that Echo’s route in Sanguine Depths evolved over the tournament weekend. It isn’t easy to change up a strategy in the midst of a competition, but Echo tends to excel at making last-minute alterations in high pressure settings. After seeing W OMEGALUL smash their time on Day 2, it appeared that Echo picked up on a bit of what they did. When Echo played Sanguine Depths on Day 1, they had a dangerous pull after the first boss where Naowh procced his Purgatory and nearly died. W OMEGALUL demonstrated a safer and highly effective pull there, so it appears that Echo adapted this for their Day 3 Sanguine Depths strategy. Even though Echo lost to MONKA in Sanguine Depths during their Semi-Finals matchup, Echo’s fastest time was 12:26 with 2 deaths, which puts them in 3rd place for fastest Sanguine Depths times in the Global Finals.

Check out the quickest Sanguine Depths routes of the Global Finals from MONKA, W OMEGALUL, and Echo’s Day 1 and Day 3!


Team: MONKA
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Fortified, Raging, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 11:43
Deaths: 0




Team: W OMEGALUL
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Fortified, Raging, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 11:56
Deaths: 0




Team: ECHO (Day 1)
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Fortified, Raging, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 13:10
Deaths: 1




Team: ECHO (Day 3)
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Fortified, Raging, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 12:26
Deaths: 2

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SPIRES OF ASCENSION

Spires of Ascension is a particularly scary dungeon in a competitive setting due to the obligation to pull entire platforms at once. In the Global Finals, this was especially stressful due to the fact that the dungeon was set to Fortified, meaning that these dangerous pulls were exacerbated by mobs having extra health and harder-hitting abilities.

To make matters worse, Sanguine was one of the affixes in Spires of Ascension throughout the tournament weekend. Sanguine is a particularly difficult affix to manage in this dungeon at a competitive level due to the way that mobs and bosses often become stationary at various times, either to spam-cast spells, or lock into largely uninterruptible abilities such as the Recharge Anima on the Forsworn Goliaths, the Recharge on Ventunax, the Drained burn phase on Oryphrion, or simply because Sanguine is just difficult to execute when huge packs of trash must be pulled onto bosses in the MDI setting.

On Day 2, MONKA displayed an impressive performance in Spires, coming in at 17:33 with only one death against Donuts and Despair. However, W OMEGALUL beat MONKA’s time on Day 3 against Sloth with a 17:10 Spires run with 0 deaths and some textbook-perfect Sanguine management.


Team: W OMEGALUL
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Fortified, Sanguine, Grievous, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 17:10
Deaths: 0




Team: MONKA
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Fortified, Sanguine, Grievous, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 17:33
Deaths: 1




Team: PERPLEXED
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Fortified, Sanguine, Grievous, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 18:41
Deaths: 2

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TAZAVESH: SO'LEAH'S GAMBIT

Much like in Spires of Ascension, the Global Finals put Sanguine into Tazavesh: So’leah’s Gambit. While we saw quite a few fast Gambit routes over the tournament weekend, the top three times were secured by W OMEGALUL, Echo, and Baldy. These teams had quick routes with large trash pulls into bosses — all while managing to keep Sanguine healing to a bare minimum!


Team: W OMEGALUL
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combination: Tyrannical, Sanguine, Storming, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 11:07
Deaths: 0




Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combination: Tyrannical, Sanguine, Storming, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 11:45
Deaths: 1




Team: BALDY
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combination: Tyrannical, Sanguine, Storming, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 12:06
Deaths: 0

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TAZAVESH: STREETS OF WONDER

As mentioned in our previous MDI Route Transcriptions article, we talked a little about how Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder showed the widest variety of routes and innovations in the Shadowlands Season 3 MDI map pool. During the Global Finals, the fastest route and execution came from MONKA on Day 2 with a time of 15:37, followed by W OMEGALUL with a time of 15:56, and Echo with a time of 16:32.

Additionally, we want to give a shoutout to Sloth for their interesting, creative, and clean Streets route. While they did not secure the quickest time in the tournament, clocking in at 16:33 with zero deaths, we saw some really unique things from them that are definitely worth checking out!


Team: MONKA
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Bolstering, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 15:37
Deaths: 0




Team: W OMEGALUL
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Bolstering, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 15:56
Deaths: 0




Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Bolstering, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 16:32
Deaths: 2




Team: SLOTH
Keystone Level: +23
Affix Combo: Tyrannical, Bolstering, Explosive, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 16:33
Deaths: 0

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THE NECROTIC WAKE

The first and only time that The Necrotic Wake was played during the tournament weekend was in the first match of the faceoff between Echo and MONKA in the Grand Finals. Echo swept this map with a flawless run, coming in at 11:23 with 0 deaths.

As usual in The Necrotic Wake, the biggest time-gains and losses for teams tend to rest in Kyrian weapon allocations and summoning Kyrian Stewards to repair the Malfunctioning Goliaths for the Anima Exhaust buff. Some cool things in Echo’s route included Zaelia Mind Controlling an Inspired Corpse Harvester on the first pull and, as soon as the mob was far enough out of range, Gingi caught it in a Freezing Trap. Echo speared the first boss with a massive trash pull, and opted to use their 2nd spear on Amarth. Echo one-phased the third boss by allocating their last spear during Surgeon Stitchflesh’s burn phase and, interestingly, committed all three of their Forgotten Forgehammers around 25/20% remaining boss health to finish Stitchflesh off.

Going into the final boss, Nalthor the Rimebinder, Echo had no remaining Kyrian weapons; however, they utilized Zaelia’s Mind-controlled Flesh Crafter from the Necropolis to aim its formidable Throw Cleaver ability as friendly-fire onto Nalthor. In fact, Mind-Controlling the Flesh Crafter in the Necropolis with a Priest allows teams to use the Flesh Crafter’s Throw Cleaver on both the 3rd and 4th bosses. If that mob is CC’d by a regular method such as a Polymorph, Paralysis, Blind, or a Hunter’s Freezing Trap, it remains hostile and prevents players from progressing to the 3rd boss, which normally requires every mob in The Necropolis to be dead before Stitchflesh will activate.

Check out Echo’s winning route below!


Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +25
Affix Combo: Fortified, Inspiring, Grievous, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 11:23
Deaths: 0

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THEATER OF PAIN

After we thought we had seen it all in Theater of Pain throughout MDI Groups A, B, C, and the China Finals, there was a little something new showcased in the Global Finals. On the way towards Kul’tharok, players must kill mobs from platform-to-platform in order to proceed through the wing. On Day 2 of the Global Finals, Echo killed the first Portal Guardian and went right as usual to handle the two Bone Magus mobs. However, instead of taking the seemingly mandatory portal to the next platform, Echo made use of the Decrypted Wo Cypher speed buff and Bouncy (the Pandaren fall damage reduction racial) to jump down to another platform instead. This enabled them to skip arguably the most dangerous platform of Kul’tharok’s wing and shave a significant chunk of time off of their timer. Even with 2 deaths, Echo completed Theater of Pain with an epic 14:15 min time.





Team: ECHO
Keystone Level: +22
Affix Combo: Fortified, Bursting, Storming, Encrypted
Time Completed in the Finals: 14:15
Deaths: 2

Additional Resources

To further unpack the magic of the MDI for yourselves, here are a few additional resources:

• Subcreation – Find S-tier for ranged, melee, tanks, and healers. Also see their gear-equipped manager and top builds.
  
• Twitch – specific player PoVs in real-time and videos on demand. Twitch may also provide an opportunity for you to respectfully ask MDI players reasonable game-related questions directly!
  
• Warcraft Logs – Data and replays: cast queues, spell uptime, interrupt/stuns, etc.
  
• Raider.IO - When watching the MDI, you can search one specific player’s name into Raider.IO to find character-specific info such as gear/legionaries, gems, enchants, soulbinds, conduits, talents, how many keys they have completed on time (5,10,15 for both Fortified/Tyrannical). Also, you may find links to each players’ socials, which can help you track down their personal addons, UIs, WeakAuras, etc.

Key Takeaways

MDI players make it look so easy, don’t they?

One of the biggest things to keep in mind about trying out MDI routes “at home” is to not be discouraged if you can’t pull things off right away. Most of these teams practiced tirelessly on the Tournament Realm to make dangerous pulls work, and the routes are heavily scripted. When we say scripted, we don’t just mean that their routes are planned in advance; we mean that every time they do each dungeon, they know who is kicking what cast on exactly what mob every single pull, who is CCing what, where players are committing specific cooldowns, and what priority targets are for funnel damage, etc. They practice killing Encrypted relic mobs at specific times to do Wo skips or reset cooldowns with Urh, and so much more.

The road to greatness can be long but extremely rewarding if you and your team want to compete in Mythic+ tournaments someday or push for high rankings on the live leaderboards with advanced dungeon routes such as the ones showcased in this article today. For example, as mentioned in our recent interview with Sloth, their team started competing in Mythic+ tournaments not so long ago despite knowing that they had years of catchup to do to face experienced teams like Echo and Perplexed. However, Sloth has improved dramatically each time they’ve competed, and they ultimately came in 4th place at the MDI Global Finals this season. Even our 5-time consecutive MDI Champions, Echo, still showed an evolution of their Sanguine Depths strategy mid-tournament once they saw something better from other groups on the live broadcast. The greatest takeaway that we can share towards competing at a top level is to develop a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, and realize that there are always new things to learn or improve upon no matter what level you and your teammates play at.


Lastly, an excellent way to get your feet wet with competitive Mythic+ content is to sign up for community-run tournaments such as the Spanish Bloodlust.IO tournament like Sloth, Keystone Masters, Dream Mythic Masters, Raider.IO Push Week events (such as Class Clash, High Key Hustle, or Break the Meta), or even our very own Raider.IO and Team Liquid Mythic+ Charity Pro-Am tournament — an event where 2 amateurs team up with 2 pro players and 1 influencer from the Mythic+ scene to raise money for charity. In fact, sign-ups for the Mythic+ Charity Pro-Am of Season 3 are currently still OPEN until July 17th at 11:59 pm PST, so please don’t hesitate to enroll for a shot at playing with the stars here!

Never be afraid to sign up for community tournaments — the experience you will gain is priceless, and the learning is invaluable.

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