Events
Dragonflight S4: TGP Group B Preview
The final TGP of Dragonflight is HERE! The Proving Grounds have concluded, the 12 qualifying teams have been determined, and the action starts NOW!
Last weekend, Mandatory, Madge, and Pedros Per Hour fought their way into Group A’s top 3 and secured their spots in the Global Finals. This weekend, we’ll watch Group B battle it out to determine which three teams will join the Group A finalists to clash for the crown! Read on for a brief overview of some new changes to the TGP format, info on each of the Group B teams, and our predictions for this weekend’s tournament.
Dragonflight’s Season 4 TGP starts at 10am PST / 7pm CEST, and you can watch it live on the Warcraft YouTube Channel, or the Warcraft Twitch Channel. If you aren’t able to tune in, we’ve got you covered with LIVE updates and highlights all weekend long with our TGP Highlights page!
Table of Contents
TGP Format Changes
Over the past few years, TGP has had a very static rulebook, but Season 4’s event promises to switch things up a bit! Blizzard has finally had enough of the 1 tank, 4 DPS shenanigans taking place in high-end key-pushing, and has now mandated that each TGP team must have 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 DPS at all times.
Additionally, viewers can expect that the first day of both Group A and B will be significantly more exciting. Now that teams will only have to work on prepping push keys for three dungeons on Day 1 instead of the usual four, we should expect to see push keys happening much earlier on Day 1 this time around. Then, teams will receive a fourth and fifth dungeon on Day 2, and a final 6th dungeon on Day 3!
So how do we think the rule changes will impact the tournament? Check out our Inside Look for our thoughts and hot takes!
Group B Teams Preview
We expect that Group B’s top 2 spots will likely go to Missed Count and Echo. However, this weekend will almost certainly give us another mad dash to third place, with Hope and Dratnos Guild Team duking it out to nab that very last spot in the Finals. Dratnos Guild Team, though they may be newcomers under this team name, are no strangers to competition, and they finished the Proving Grounds mere seconds behind Hope, so these teams certainly look to be on even ground as they head into this weekend.
Besides veteran teams Echo, Missed Count, and Hope, Group B also hosts one completely new team in JIF. We’re also thrilled to welcome back the team with our favorite name of all time: Ducks Can Fly! JIF who did manage to finish ahead of Ducks Can Fly despite their inexperience in the competitive Mythic+ arena.
Shockingly, Echo did not seem to be their usually impressive selves during the Proving Ground stage, where they struggled to put up competitive times until the final day. The hyper-experienced, mega-powerful team even allowed Mandatory AND Missed Count to finish ahead of them, as they ultimately came in third. We already saw giants fall when Perplexed left the tournament in Day 2 of Group A’s weekend - is this the season of new beginnings? Will Echo be able to stave off their biggest competitors, Missed Count?
Group B looks to be an exciting one, because we’re heading into it with three pairs of almost perfectly-matched teams: Echo vs Missed Count, Hope vs Dratnos Guild Team, and JIF vs Ducks Can Fly. If these teams all play the way we expect, each day of Group B’s weekend will be an absolute banger!
This is a bold team name for a group hoping to take it all in this season’s TGP! Missed Count may seem to be a new name, but behind the menacing team moniker lie some familiar faces. Experienced competitors Kira, Ayije, and Yarrgi, who previously competed as Eclipse, also welcome back another familiar name: Hearthjacks, who played with the trio in Dragonflight Season 2’s TGP under the name Last Minute, where they finished 5th. Rounding out the team is Thaner, who previously played with Sheesh.
These Europeans had an impressive showing in the Proving Grounds as the first team to successfully beat the timer on a terrifying +21 Brackenhide Hollow. Missed Count held the rank 1 spot until the very final moments of the Proving Grounds Stage, at which point they were narrowly beaten out by Mandatory’s Hail Mary, last-second push.
Clearly, Missed Count have not lived up to their name yet in this season’s competition, and we’re hoping to see more of their impressive performance this weekend, particularly as they square up with their biggest rivals, Echo and Hope.
Echo truly need no introduction, as they may be the winningest, most intimidating team ever to grace the WoW esports stage. However, giants do fall, and we saw Mandatory take them out in the Global Finals at last season’s MDI. Naowh, Zaelia, Clickz, Gingi, and Meeres are back once again this season, though, and are gunning to take that crown back and end Dragonflight as the Mythic+ victors!
Surprisingly, Echo were entirely unimpressive during the Proving Grounds stage, languishing in the lower third of qualified teams until the final day. Even still, they only managed to pop back up to 3rd place, and come into their group weekend behind Group A rivals Mandatory and fellow Group B competitors Missed Count. However, Echo did manage to complete the fastest +21 Brackenhide Hollow of any of the Proving Grounds teams, boasting a blazing 33:01 completion time; clearly, they’ve still got that competitive fire burning strong.
We know Echo are eager to regain their crown and finish out Dragonflight as victors in the Race to World First, PvP AND Mythic+ arenas, so we’re anticipating an impressive performance out of them this weekend!
Hope may be a new team name, but make no mistake: we’ve seen this team many times before! Formerly known as Last Hope and before that, NA’s Last Hope, this group finished 4th place in last season’s MDI after being eliminated 2-3 by Perplexed in the Lower Finals.
Dorki, Goop, and Smacked are ready once again to tackle the big-name EU teams for some NA glory! They’ve replaced former healer Drohgoh, who is now playing for Pedros Per Hour with Ellesmere, a key-pushing veteran returning to the competitive scene after a well-deserved break. Yipz, a former Donuts and Despair member, completes the team as a replacement for Crypticzz, who is instead playing for Dratnos Guild Team this season.
Even with the roster shake ups this season, Hope finished the Proving Grounds stage in a respectable 6th place. They may be in for a challenge this weekend, as they have both Missed Count and Echo to contend with, but we have high hopes for Hope, and expect to see them in the top 3 at the end of Group B’s weekend.
Dratnos Guild Team are bringing some hype back into the NA competitive Mythic+ scene, as the FOURTH NA team to qualify for the group stage. This team finished 7th after the Proving Grounds stage, right behind fellow countrymen Hope.
Frosty, Timbermaw, Crypticzz, Forgyy, and Tarisant may be new to competition under this team name, but several of them have played in tournaments before. Tarisant played with Oldge in Shadowlands Season 4’s TGP, as well as teaming up with Let Them Cook in Dragonflight Season 1. Crypticzz, formerly a member of Last Hope’s Dragonflight Seaon 3 MDI roster, also played with Donuts and Despair in Shadowlands Season 4 alongside Dratnos Guild Team buddy Timbermaw.
While this squad performed relatively well in the Proving Grounds stage for a newly-formed team, they are up against some formidable veteran teams this weekend, and we expect it may be quite difficult for Dratnos Guild Team to fight their way into the top 3.
JIF (short for Jisoo is Fluffy) is a brand new team to the competitive Mythic+ scene, and watching their journey through the Proving Grounds stage was certainly a wholesome and heartwarming experience. These newcomers earned themselves a 10th place spot after a tense few hours fighting through the much-disparaged Brackenhide Hollow, and we certainly joined them in their celebrations when they finally secured their spot!
Abeed, Ravenseeker, Jisoo, Jonny, and Shoxm make their official TGP debut this weekend, but will be facing some brutal competition, particularly as they must outperform Echo to have any hope of moving on. However, the squad themselves have said they are hyped just to be a part of the broadcast, and don’t have any other expectations for their performance this season, so their gameplay this weekend is much less about their standings and much more about a fun, wholesome learning experience for a new team. Welcome to the big stage, JIF!
Ducks Can Fly still have our hearts as the team with the best name amongst all the competitive Mythic+ teams. Goatface, Luca, Mirage, Quorux, and Fermoza have been around the block a few times now, and are familiar with the demands of tournament gameplay. Sadly, their journey to the top was cut quite short in Season 3’s MDI, as the ducklings were eliminated early on in their group weekend after losing to Eclipse and Bone Buds Resurrected.
Unfortunately, Ducks Can Fly look to be in a difficult position once again this season, as they finished the Proving Grounds in 11th place, 14 seconds behind their most likely rivals this weekend, JIF. As they finished quite a bit behind the top 9 on both key level and time, we’re not so sure the Ducks are ready to make it to the Global Finals just yet. However, we do anticipate watching them gear up for a fight versus JIF as both teams try to avoid a Day 1 elimination.
Group B Predictions
Only three teams from Group B can join the Group A finalists in the Grand Finals. We feel fairly certain that the top 2 spots are already spoken for: Missed Count and Echo will very likely be the top teams of the weekend, as long as Echo are back on their game and show up with the incredible power and consistency we know them to be capable of! However, we may see another exciting race for third place here, as Dratnos Guild Team ended up only two seconds behind Hope after the Proving Grounds. Given that these two teams seem evenly matched, Day 3 could be another nail-biter this weekend!
Day 1 may also be an especially exciting one this time around, as we expect JIF and Ducks Can Fly to duke it out against each other in the hopes of avoiding becoming the first team eliminated. JIF is a new team who are happy just to have made it to the group stage, while Ducks Can Fly have been on broadcast before; however, JIF did perform slightly better in the Proving Grounds, finishing 14 seconds ahead of Ducks on the leaderboard. We anticipate that Dratnos Guild Team will outlast both JIF and Ducks Can Fly, but they may find themselves just out of the top 3 on Sunday.
We’re always big fans of the underdog stories, and would love to see a new team usurp the veterans. However, Group B is not likely to be the avenue through which the underdogs prevail. Stranger things have happened in WoW esports, though, so you’d better join us on Friday at 10 AM PST/7 PM CEST for Group B of Dragonflight Season 4’s The Great Push to see how it all plays out!
Thanks for reading our Group B Preview, and be sure to visit the OFFICIAL TGP Dragonflight Season 4 hub for info on the rules, prizes, teams, and the LIVE events coverage!
Links
- Watch The Great Push LIVE on Twitch
- Watch The Great Push LIVE on YouTube
- Visit the Official TGP Tournament Hub on Raider.IO
- Tune in for LIVE Event Coverage on Raider.IO
- Read An Inside Look on The Great Push Format Changes
- Support Raider.IO on Patreon
About the Authors
Gogogadgetkat has been playing WoW since late BC, and has been the GM of her guild Propaganda since its creation in 2014. As a career healer, Kat has a number of CEs and old-school heroic kills under her belt, all on a variety of healing classes and specs—she’s a serial altoholic! In addition to Mythic raiding and a little Mythic+, creating safe, inclusive spaces in gaming is her longtime passion; Kat has been an admin for the Perky Pugs community since late BfA, and is also a founding council member and Executive Director for the DEIBAJ initiative VISAGE. She is excited to bring her wealth of experience and love of writing to the Raider.IO team.
Picco is an old-fashioned WoW gamer that started back in Vanilla and has played ever since. She is a healer by heart and is currently maining Restoration Druid. She loves Mythic+ and has a great passion for events like the MDI and TGP. Picco is part of the KeystoneMasters team and enjoys jiggling around with ideas for fun new formats of community tournaments. She is also a Mod for several streamers and guilds, particularly during the RWF. Outside of WoW, Picco is a Sprout in FF14, where she explores with her Lala Summoner.
