Mythic Ula’tek is finally dead. After 17 days, three weekly resets and more than 300 pulls on World of Warcraft’s final Midnight Season 2 raid boss, Team Liquid has won The Venomous Abyss Race to World First. According to Wowhead’s final progression count, the kill came on pull 306, giving Liquid its fifth consecutive Race to World First victory. Echo then killed Ula’tek roughly 25 minutes later, producing one of the closest finishes WoW’s modern raid race has seen.
It is an appropriately ridiculous ending to a raid that refused to behave like a normal eight-boss tier. Liquid had already spent 310 pulls defeating Mythic Coiled Altar before it even reached Ula’tek. The final boss then demanded another 300-plus attempts, multiple rounds of Blizzard tuning, a third reset of gear and enough strategy revisions to make the first week of progression feel like archaeological evidence.
Liquid Went From 22% to a Kill in Around 10 Pulls
The final hours were especially dramatic because Echo appeared to have the advantage. Echo had already produced several sub-10% wipes while Liquid was still considerably further away. Then Liquid’s progression suddenly accelerated. Wowhead reports that the guild jumped from roughly 22% to 11% and then to the World First kill within about ten pulls.
The winning composition used two Blood Death Knight tanks, four healers and fourteen DPS, including two Assassination Rogues, two Balance Druids, two Arcane Mages and a mixture of several other high-performing Season 2 specs. That gearing depth was the result of an enormous amount of preparation. Liquid spent roughly five and a half days gearing before seriously committing to Mythic progression, then continued squeezing character power out of every reset once the raid began fighting back.
By the third reset, even Mythic Venomous Abyss BoEs had become tradeable while Ula’tek was still alive. More gear helped. Eventually, execution had to finish the job.
Ula’tek Needed Multiple Nerfs Before the Kill
The version of Ula’tek Liquid finally defeated was not the same boss that first greeted the Race to World First. Blizzard repeatedly adjusted the encounter as progression revealed how demanding several mechanics were. Most recently, Blight Vein damage was reduced by 25% and Soul Constrictor shortened from six seconds to five, making Phase 2 more consistent without removing its tether mechanics.
That came after players had already learned how unpleasant the Mythic-only egg system could be. As we covered in our original Mythic Ula’tek mechanics breakdown, a Blightscale Spawn hatching could apply a stacking raid-wide damage effect lasting an hour, while eggs themselves had to be damaged, moved and kept apart correctly.
The final phase introduced another layer of experimentation. Top guilds discovered strategies involving jumping into the venom to gain additional space and uptime during the last damage amplification window. Blizzard was actively working on preventing part of that strategy shortly before the kill. Liquid still managed to finish the encounter with an extremely clean final pull.
Echo Killed Ula’tek About 25 Minutes Later
The most extraordinary part may be how little separated first and second place. Method’s live Race to World First tracker recorded Liquid’s World First at 20:04 BST on September 3. Echo’s World Second appeared at 20:29 BST.
About 25 minutes.
That is painfully close after more than two weeks of preparation, hundreds of wipes and the long-standing regional reset disparity between North America and Europe. It will inevitably revive the argument over whether the Race to World First needs a global simultaneous raid release, but that deserves its own discussion rather than being buried inside Liquid’s victory article.
What cannot be disputed is that both guilds had solved the boss. Echo had reached a 1.23% wipe shortly before Liquid’s kill, and once the finish line became visible, both teams were essentially one clean attempt away.
This Is Liquid’s Fifth Consecutive Race to World First Win
The Venomous Abyss extends Liquid’s current winning streak to five consecutive Race to World First victories. That makes this more than one successful raid tier. It is now a sustained competitive era.
The achievement is particularly impressive because this raid forced Liquid through two consecutive 300-pull walls. Coiled Altar was difficult enough that Blizzard continued nerfing it after Liquid’s World First kill, while Ula’tek survived into the third reset despite top guilds arriving with increasingly powerful gear.
Even Heroic had warned us what was coming. QingShui needed several days to secure the first Heroic Ula’tek kill, and only 231 guilds worldwide defeated Heroic Ula’tek during the opening week.
Blizzard always intended The Venomous Abyss to gradually become easier as Season 2 progressed.
Liquid did not wait.
Seventeen days.
Two 300-pull bosses.
Five Race to World First victories in a row.
And Ula’tek is finally dead.
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