WoW MDI Shadowlands Season 2 – Format, Changes & New Competitors

After the resounding success that was the launch of the Shadowlands expansion, it’s no great surprise that the now second iteration of the Shadowlands competitive season is expected to make big waves yet again. With a prize pool of $380k, the MDI is all set to be the next big thing in dungeon running.

As is often the case for the MDI events, the organizers are making a few changes to the format of the event. In this year’s set of changes, there are some pretty significant deviations from last year – based on feedback from players, fans and viewers (or so the official press release says)!

© WoW Esports

MDI Season 2 Format

The upcoming Mythic Dungeon International event will kick off with a three-phase format, with each phase lasting for 1-2 weeks. The first of the three phases will last from August 18^th to August 24^th, and it will be a type of time trials. Teams can register for the event until 48 hours before launch, at which point all teams will compete in the time trials. The top 24 teams of the period will be advancing to the second phase.

Second phase features group play lasting from September 3^rd to 19^th. Here, the 24 qualifying teams will be split into 3 groups, and each weekend will see one group competing. The exact affixes and details as well as the dungeon keystone difficulty will be different for each group to make sure they all have equal time to prepare for the event – one week exactly. A weekly prize pool of $20k will be split between the competing teams, and the top two teams will move on to the Global Finals straight away.

As for the rest – the other 18 teams will be competing in a final stage – the Last Stand tournament. The dates for it haven’t been announced yet, but are expected to be within a few weeks of the second phase and before the finals respectively. In this final stage, teams will face a time rush format – they’ll be racing to cover various keystones in a 15-hour time limit.

© WoW Esports

Changes

These aren’t the only changes made though – the teams competing will also be using a brand new affix – the Seasonal Tormented Affix. This is of course not part of normal gameplay, nor of the ever-popular Great Push that happened when the Shadowlands expansion fully released. Tormented will place four powerful lieutenants throughout the dungeon which can be defeated for anima powers. Killing or not killing a lieutenant will result in the final boss either gaining or losing a buff.

This means we will get to see teams weigh-in the pros of cons of killing said lieutenants or confidently skipping them if they can melt through the final boss with said buffs.

As for the missing details – they will all be released in the upcoming weeks – at the very latest, when the actual event gears up for the first phase of the group stage. Likely a little sooner, in the next few weeks.

All of the new changes to Season 2 are for one main reason; – the previous season had teams struggling with the time commitments necessary to compete in the event, as they made it difficult to also maintain a private and work life. Of course it also affected performance – while the new format may not be perfect, it aims to reduce the stress on the players and make it easier for them to do their best!

The Battle

While most of the press goes towards the ongoing battle between Echo and Perplexed. The time trial qualifiers can bring plenty of new blood to the scene for Season 2. We have also seen a great resurgence of Chinese dungeon teams pushing serious keystones and solid completion times.

Will the east finally become competitive in Mythic+?

With Chains of Domination 9.1 still fresh, we haven’t seen how teams will perform in the current content cycle. As far as tracking stats on Raider.io goes, we see plenty of actual amateur teams gearing up for this seasons MDI.