wow Eternal Palace Day 12: Method Take the Lead, 5% on Azshara, Limit Staying Up, Slight Red Bull Drama

[Starym 3,779]

 

Well, I realize I probably say this far too often, but today really WAS the most exciting race day so far! After Limit's amazing push on day 11 and them keeping their impressive lead, today saw a complete reversal, as Azshara progress hit a fever pitch. Method took a significant lead for the first time on Azshara and Limit have decided to stay up until she's dead.

On a side note, honestly, the fact that there's been plenty of stuff to write about for 12 days now in these summaries just shows what a really great race this has been.

After some doubt about their 2-heal strategy, Method tried a few different comps, but soon just went back to their OG setup. Early in the evening they were beginning to see the fruits of their labor, started getting to the P4 consistently, and started the evening off with a 33% wipe. This was already impressive and saw them 4% behind Limit, who hadn't yet gone back to raiding. The next step was a massive jump as a 15% wipe truly showed everyone that the Queen might actually die very soon. For a while after that it seemed that that one may have been a fluke, a simple perfect pull randomly happening - but then came the capper of the evening, as around 1 AM CEST Method went and did this:

07:45:32

That's right, a 5.1% wipe, pushing the EU guild to raid for another 3 hours after that, only calling it a night at 4 AM and being completely sure they'd get that kill today.

Meanwhile, and somewhat strangely, Limit seemed to be struggling to get back to their Day 11 form, as it took them some 4 hours to improve on their best, and even then it was a 4% bump. They did get warmed up after that, however, and managed to significantly improve with a 19.4% try, quickly followed by a 15.8 and then a few pulls later, this 13% one:

11:04:08

Limit had another 3 or so hours with no big progress, with a few sub 20% tries only, and also extended their raid times massively, basically deciding they're not going to sleep until she's dead. For reference, they normally called it a night around 1 hour ago. In terms if strategy, Method's 2-heal is going for massive DPS and killing the boss before the third console, while Limit's 3-heal is intended to outheal the third (and possibly fourth) console explosion.

We then had a bit of drama on the Method vs. Red Bull event front, as a trigger happy Red Bull channel manager either decided to be a bit funny or was genuinely being very disrespectful, as relayed by Method co-founder, Sascha Steffens:

Strange, since Method stopped @maximumwow has gained 11k viewers and RB 2k viewers...

— Sascha Steffens (@SaschaSteffens) July 28, 2019

Hopefully it was just a joke gone bad, as both Method and Red Bull streams have been quite successful, with Method having around 40-50k viewers in prime time, and Red Bull around 7-9k, and they both, along with the individual streamers (especially GMs Sco and Max) have pushed WoW back to the top 5 of Twitch games for the month.

But back to the actual race, it seems fairly certain we'll be seeing a kill today, with both guilds pretty low, and Method at a big advantage both in terms of best % and the fact that they have quite a bit of time until Limit return from their sleep break. And here's Method GM Sco, being pretty confident about their kill today, with an added layer of tension as main strategist RogerBrown will have to leave after today's attempts!

Tomorrow we kill for sure ? https://t.co/R18V557El0

— Scott McMillan (@Methodsco) July 28, 2019

On that same note, Limit will be flying back to the US from their current London home on Tuesday, although it's a little unsure if that will impact their raid day, since it's the US reset. While we're still days away from that particular conversation, and everyone is expecting her to die today, if we do get to Tuesday, it's going to be another difficult decision for Limit, as an extension on an endboss has already cost them a World First (although if Azshara truly lives to Tuesday, more loot is clearly required).

• Method stream
• Red Bull's stream
• Method raid progress page

[Starym 3,779]

Edited the strategy part a little, something got messed up and it sounded very weird when first published.

[Starym 3,779]

Seems Limit changed their mind and just went to bed.

[Whisla 76]

Man the look on max's face is just hard to watch. He knows they couldve had it if the nerfs came earlier or not at all. Sucks when your strat is sooo close to working to get a change and have everyone catch up right away. 

 

It really has been the better race so far though, especially considering everything was pointing to this being another 1 boss tier. Been fun to watch and hear all the strats play out

[Yridaa 490]

When the competition between top contenders is more entertaining than the game itself, does it show how well the competition is or how bad the game is?