Big Brain Strats from the First MDI Cups

By VitaminP — Apr 24 2020 4:43 PM EDT

Over the past two weekends, we’ve watched the top 8 teams from Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania compete for their first regional Cups of the 2020 Mythic Dungeon International (MDI). In those Cups, we saw some creative new and adapted strategies come out of several teams. To prepare you for the EU & Asia Cup #2 tomorrow, let’s take a look back at what we’ve seen so far.

In the first EU & Asia Cup of the 2020 MDI, Method EU swept the tournament in typical Method EU fashion, reigning undefeated in every map. Perplexed also had a strong winning streak and made it to the Upper Finals where they squared off against Method EU, but lost and got sent down to the Lower Finals against The Boys. Perplexed came out of the Lower Bracket victorious and got their rematch with Method EU in the Grand Finals, but lost to Method’s dominant performance in the Siege and Freehold maps. Perplexed got the rematch with Method EU in the Grand Finals, but ultimately lost in the Grand Finals. We saw a strong performance from The Boys who fought their way through the Lower Bracket with victories against Self Reliance and Paint for Fem, but lost to Perplexed in the Lower Finals. Paint for Fem also looked quite strong this Cup having wins against Self Reliance and Deplete from Beyond, but got knocked out by The Boys in the Lower Bracket Semi-Finals.

In the AMER Division Cup 1 last weekend, Method NA took the victory in the Grand Finals with a dominant finish. However, Ethical didn’t go down without a fight, as they won an Atal’Dazar map from Method NA in the penultimate match of the series with the same winning obelisk kite strategy we saw from team Perplexed in Freehold during the first EU & Asia Cup. After losing to Honestly in the first round Complexity-Limit fought their way back through the Lower Bracket, defeating Goosy Bad with a neck-and-neck Mechagon: Workshop match until the final boss, but ultimately losing to Ethical in the Lower Finals.

For your convenience, you can view the brackets on Raider.IO to see the full gear breakdowns and quick navigation:

Now, let’s take a look at some of the highlights we’ve seen in the tournament so far:

Zmok kites all four Awakened mobs to victory in Freehold

In a Freehold map between Perplexed and Puolukka, we saw a most unique strategy for handling the Awakened mobs in the MDI for the first time, which put them significantly ahead of Puolukka despite it being a relatively close match up until the end of Trothak. When Perplexed reached Harlan, their healer, Zmok, took threat of all four Awakened mobs and kited them around the instance while the other 4 players finished off Harlan without a healer. This was particularly creative and impressive, since it was a Tyrannical key and their tank Divinefield was specced into a purely offensive tanking build with rank 3 Twilight Devastation and a Gushing Wounds, yet he was able to survive on the boss while Zmok kited the obelisks mobs far out of range around the dungeon.

When I asked Zmok about the inception of this strategy, he said, “Ashine came up with the idea. It just kind of came as a random thought in the beginning of our practice and then we decided to try it out. We nearly decided not to do it, since it’s a very risky strat. I can't tell exactly what aspects are risky, since we might use strat again later in the series, but accidental snapping is only one of the things that can cause real danger. It took quite a few tries to get it on point, and you need a specific pathing for the healer to be able to kite.”

Naowh destroys the Guardian Elemental in Shrine with Spell Reflect

In the matchup between Method EU and Perplexed in Shrine of the Storm, we saw an awesome new strat from where their tank, Naowh, Spell Reflected the Electrifying Shock from the Guardian Elemental on the bridge towards the second boss. He soloed it at first in order to Spell Reflect the first Electrifying Shock while the rest of the members stayed back, well out of range. This was another great MDI caliber strat from Method EU because the Guardian Elemental is worth 26 count, which is about the same value as pulling 4 regular sized mobs in this dungeon.

Method NA pulls an entire room into Cragmaw... and more

In their first match against Angry Toast, Method NA performed an insanely large trash pull into Cragmaw in The Underrot, which they chained into the remaining trash in the room after the first Tantrum and then chained in the Reanimated Guardians for around the last 20% health of Cragmaw. The dangers in a pull like this are innumerable, but Method NA showed their prowess in not only conceiving of a strat as massive as this one, but executing it in a tournament setting.

Method NA and Complexity Limit square off with identical trash snap pulls into Rezan

In a Method NA match versus Complexity-Limit where both teams snapped their tank to Rezan with Misdirect in a very large and efficient pull.

Angry Toast creatively adapts a new Rezan snap pull

In an Atal’Dazar match between Angry Toast and Honestly, Angry Toast showed a very creative evolution of a Rezan snapping strategy where their tank, Deswind, pulled a huge amount of trash near the start of the instance while his teammates went straight to Rezan, thereby snapping him to the boss for some massive cleave.

Imfiredup finds a safe spot on Head Machinist Sparkflux to blast

In an Operation Mechagon: Workshop match between Goosy Bad and Complexity Limit, Imfireup positioned himself on the stairs by Head Machinist Sparkflux where he could avoid all the fire beams in order to maximize damage within his Rune of Power without moving.

Tomorrow, be sure to catch the EU & ASIA Cup #2 live on YouTube to see the top 8 regional teams square off again and Tweet us your favorite moments with the hashtag #BIGBRAINSTRAT!

Links

Read more about the Cups and Time Trials:

Watch the Cup broadcasts on YouTube:

Vitaminpee mains a Brewmaster and loves to do competitive Mythic+. She is the Social Media Manager for Big Dumb Gaming and is attending Graduate School to pursue her Masters of Business Administration. She is a partnered Twitch streamer and Discord Partner who plays all tanks at max level and loves pushing keys with her friends. Feel free to message her via Twitter for any business-related inquiries.