Echo Slight Faves To Win WoW Sepulcher Of The First Ones Mythic Race

A brand new World of Warcraft raid has finally been released, with Sepulcher of the First Ones becoming available on March 1. This, of course, means the return of the legendary Race to World First, with guilds all over the world competing to be the first ones to take down the final boss.

As usual, the real challenge comes from the Mythic version of the raid. This is an increased difficulty level, which releases on March 8, and generally takes players around a week or so to finish up. This means we’re in for quite a bit of WoW action. 

If you’re unfamiliar with World of Warcraft, or just the Mythic scene, here’s a quick rundown. Groups of 20 players, known as guilds, attempt to storm an AI-controlled dungeon and defeat the final boss as quickly as possible. In this case, they’ll be taking on the Sepulcher of the First Ones and will need to take down 11 immensely powerful enemies, aka bosses. 

When it comes to the race, and what we’ll be betting on, all that matters is who defeats the final boss, The Jailer, first. Generally, the final boss is the most difficult, so we’re likely to see a lot of back and forth over the course of the race, before teams hit a roadblock at the final boss and then it’s a matter of who manages to crack it first. 

It’s also important to note that anyone can take part in the Race to World First. As long as a player is doing the raid, they’re part of the race. Of course, things aren’t so simple and the average joe generally won’t be anywhere near the best guilds, who spend months preparing for these races. Let’s take a look at some of the best guilds and how they’re shaping up ahead of the race. 

Guilds To Watch In The Sepulcher Of The First Ones Mythic Race

There are two key favorites for this race: Echo and Liquid. The two teams have historically been the strongest in the world, dominating the Race to World First scene for the last decade and between them picking up almost all of the wins since 2012. 

With that being said, there’s always tight competition. It usually comes down to just a couple of hours, in what is an extended week or more marathon, and quite a few guilds manage to knock down the final boss in quick succession. 

This time around, a few key underdogs to watch include Pieces, BDGG, Method, Aversion and Aster. There are also some notes around teams in general. First up, Method are as an organization historically the best guild, however, the dominant roster left Method in 2020, creating Echo. 

Similarly, Liquid are a new face in terms of organizations in WoW. They picked up the Complexity Limit roster in 2021, which was generally considered the second-best of all time, and even managed to win the first race of Shadowlands at the end of 2020. 

Last but not least, we also have Aster, who created a Chinese superteam in 2021. The organization picked up all of the strongest players in the country into one guild and now that they’ve had time to jell, they could be a real dark horse. 

Moving on to the actual race itself, things are pretty simple. The raid is released on March 8 and the guilds can play whenever and however they want as they attempt to take down the final boss. Most players and guilds stream their progress live on Twitch, so it’s fairly simple to see who’s doing what and when. There’s also no specific time limit or anything like that; guilds simply race until the final boss is defeated. The last two races lasted just over seven days, so there’s a good chance we can expect a similar duration for this one. 

Who Is Favored To Win WoW Sepulcher Of The First Ones Mythic Race?

Odds as of March 7 at Sportsbook

Echo Looks To Reclaim Race to World First Dominance

Echo are by far the most successful guild in World of Warcraft history, having won over a dozen races and seeing general dominance over the last decade. The team hit a snag in 2020, having left their previous organization, Method, to start Echo. 

Since then, things have been a bit hit-or-miss. Echo lost the two races following their departure from Method to main rivals Limit (who now go by Liquid). However, the game’s most recent race, back in July 2021, went to Echo by an extremely small margin and the competition is truly on for this one. 

Echo enter this Race to World First at EVEN odds, while rivals Liquid are very close behind at +110. This puts the teams at implied odds of 50 and 47.62 percent respectively, according to our Super Calculator, meaning things almost couldn’t be closer. 

The favorites will now be looking to repeat their 2021 performance and reclaim the dominance they were known for in the past. 

Can Team Liquid Help Limit Bounce Back?

The other favorite of the event, Team Liquid, are looking to bounce back with a win after Echo interrupted their run in 2021. 

Liquid were always a top squad in WoW and things finally looked to be going their way. At the start of 2020, they won the N’Zoth Race to World First and continued that into the current expansion, Shadowlands. 

However, in the most recent race in the Sanctum of Domination, Echo reclaimed their crown, putting an end to Liquid’s run in the process. The team has since seen some changes, moving from Complexity to Team Liquid and changing the organization they represent. 

This potentially means that Liquid will have more resources coming into this event, as they are now backed by one of the biggest esports teams out there. Considering how close the last race was, being signed by Liquid may just give the guild that extra boost they need to come out on top once again. 

Aster’s Chinese Superteam Looks To Be Mythic Race Dark Horse

Aster enter the race as heavy underdogs, having heavily underperformed in 2021. The new Aster squad was built as a superteam made up of all of the best players in China under the banner of one of the country’s biggest esports teams. 

However, despite a strong start, they completely crumbled in the Sanctum of Domination, placing seventh overall. The disappointment aside, there are some positives for the guild. Their roster was fairly new, only having been put together around a month before the start of the race. 

Now, they’ve had over nine months to jell and come up with exciting new strategies for the upcoming race. Hopefully, we’ll see a better performance out of Aster and a potential new top dog to challenge the two favorites.