Echo Esports have finally done it. Fyrakk is down and the Race to World First is sealed. After thousands combined wipes and an entire weekend of raiding the final boss in Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope has been defeated.

This was one of the best races we’ve seen in 2023 and probably the best race in the past two expansions. Echo Esports and Liquid were both neck and neck for the last 48 hours and only minute percentage points and a bit of luck decided the ultimate winner.

Amirdrassil gave us one of the best RWF’s to date

Two full weeks of raiding, packed full with serious theorycrafting, guilds going dark and peak exhaustion levels were only the marginal challenges raiders faced. In total, 450 Guilds have now defeated at least one boss in the raid and officially joined the race.

However, the usual two suspects (Echo Esports and Team Liquid) were the main drivers of progress throughout the raid. Both favored to win, both did an amazing job in progressing and both guilds delivered a magnificent high intensity viewership experience in the final five hours of the race that.

Credit: Twitter (X)

Several guilds already hailed this as one of the best RWF races thus far:

“Whatever happens, this has probably been the best RWF ever since teams started streaming prog.” – Rodger Brown (Echo Esports)

One of the best highlights however, came from JB:

Let’s now forget, Method was also in the mix throughout both weeks always being about 18 hours behind the main two leaders. It’s a massive accomplishment how far Method has gone after fully reforming and rebuilding from scratch just over a year ago. Check out the progress breakdown between the main three guilds:

Credit: Team Liquid / Raider.io

We have to give kudos to Starym at Raider.io who likely lost his mind during this race. He gave us persistent minute by minute updates from all the guilds progressing and an utterly wholesome RWF experience.

RWF had 400K live viewers and raised over $100,000 for charity

A key part of the Race to World First is the Guild’s charitable donations to various organizations and non-profits. This race was no different, and we saw over $100K collected across the main guilds towards various causes.

Additionally, a new viewership record was set for the RWF WoW category on Twitch as over 400,000 viewers tuned in between the various streams to follow the final moments of the race.

Given how popular this race was, I am now confident the next expansion will offer even more competition and an evolved WoW esports experience for all.

Read next: WoW Race To World First: What Is It, Tier List and History