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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Admin" data-source="post: 70772" data-attributes="member: 1"><img src="https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2026/04/06/6jtjzyzd8gj21771536846376-1775492723705.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Last week, the third raid of World of Warcraft's Midnight expansion opened up: The March on Quel'Danas. My guild and I were pretty proud to have finished off both its bosses on Normal difficulty over the weekend, thank you very much. But there's currently an absolutely nuts race going on between the top two World of Warcraft raiding guilds in the world to be the first to beat it on the highest difficulty. Yesterday, one of the teams thought they had won, only to stumble upon a secret, ultra-hard, Easter resurrection-themed final boss phase that absolutely no one saw coming.Midnight's first raiding "tier" includes three raids: the Voidspire, the Dreamrift, and March on Quel'Danas. The first two raids launched a few weeks ago, but Quel'Danas was held off for a bit both to stagger progression somewhat as well as mitigate story spoilers.March on Quel'Danas includes two bosses. One is against a very conflicted phoenix. The second is an encounter called "Midnight Falls" that pits the party against the void-corrupted cosmic being, L'ura, that's been held inside one of the main characters, Alleria, for several expansions now. It's a dramatic three-phase encounter against a true cosmic horror of a foe, takes place in the darkened Sunwell (now referred to as the Darkwell), and includes all sorts of cool and challenging mechanics in varying shades of purple and blue. It's a great finale for the tier.This is L'ura, for context. She's having a bad day. All of her days have been bad for a long time:WoW's top guilds have been fighting to be the first to defeat L'ura on Mythic difficulty, the hardest level of challenge WoW has to offer, since the raid opened on Tuesday last week. Yesterday, it looked like one of the teams, US-based guild Liquid, had taken the win, bringing L'ura down to 0% health. But just as they started to celebrate, a massive wave of damage hit the team, killing most of them.And then... <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/maximum/clip/EncouragingKawaiiPistachioBuddhaBar-XulobU2XE_fNrSoN" target="_blank">L'ura started casting a spell</a>.The reactions from the team are genuinely delightful. Despite feeling victory slip from their grasp, everyone seemed to be in pretty good spirits about it. More than anything, there seems to be a feeling of real excitement from not just the competitors, but also the community at the presence of a "secret" final phase. Specifically, a secret phase that involved L'ura dying and then "rising" from the grave... discovered on Easter Sunday, no less.The memes are pretty good:This bonus phase has allowed Liquid's rival guild, the European-based Echo, to push past them into first place. As I'm writing this, Echo has actually gotten closer to finishing that final phase than Liquid has. Echo has gotten L'ura's last phase down to just 11.8% health after 420 attempts, meaning victory is in sight. Meanwhile, Liquid just logged back in and is coming at the fight fresh, after pushing L'ura's final phase down to 44.7% yesterday, and then taking a needed rest. Echo lost all three World First races to Liquid last expansion, so if Echo can pull this off, it'll mark a significant victory. It's also turning around some opinions on Midnight's raiding scene in general, which has up to this point largely been regarded as a bit too easy compared to past expansions.Blizzard has included secret phases present only on Mythic difficulty for raid bosses in the past, with memorable ones including Archimonde at the end of Warlords of Draenor, the Jailor in Shadowlands, and my personal favorite, Garrosh Hellscream, taking players to his warped dream of a demolished Stormwind at the tail end of Mists of Pandaria.But L'ura's secret phase is especially notable. For one, while there have been other secret phases at different points in boss fights in past years, L'ura popping back up after hitting 0% is a shock that we haven't really seen since Cho'gall interrupted the Imperator Mar'gok fight in Warlords of Draenor and took over for a final phase.Plus, no one really saw this one coming. Usually, some info about secret phases can be datamined or figured out in advance by crafty players who do their research. For L'ura, the only clue was an ability called "Reintegrate" attached to her that didn't seem to have much of a purpose. No one really knew what it was for or connected it to a resurrection mechanic like what was used here.The secrecy here was likely quite challenging for Blizzard to pull off, not just in terms of datamining but also in terms of testing. Very few people can play at the level required to succeed at a fight this difficult this soon after a raid's release, with weaker gear and no prior knowledge of mechanics. That means there's a very limited pool of people who would have been able to test this for Blizzard to make sure it was functional, or even possible. And yet, here we are.If you want to watch this unfold with me, <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/echo_esports" target="_blank">Echo's currently streaming right here at the time this piece went live</a>, and <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/teamliquid" target="_blank">Liquid's right here</a>. Echo seems like they're going to pull this off any minute now, but the level of precision required to make it through this long and difficult fight is such that they could possibly continue to struggle long enough for Liquid, fully-rested, to surpass them.Good luck to both teams, who are playing WoW at a level I cannot personally fathom. I will simply be content once my Guild finishes the fight on Heroic difficulty in a few weeks.Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to <a href="mailto:rvalentine@ign.com">rvalentine@ign.com</a>.<a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/world-of-warcrafts-race-to-world-first-is-seriously-nuts-after-an-easter-resurrection-miracle" target="_blank">Continue reading...</a></blockquote>

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