Before the start of the first “Race to World First” in The War Within, Blizzard bans players from Echo and other professional guilds

In a week, the mythical version of the Nerub’ar raid palace from WoW: The War Within will open its doors, and with it the “World First Race” for the fastest boss kills will begin. Blizzard has now given birth to some players who are currently preparing for the community competition.

Who was banned and for what reason? There are reports on various platforms and sites on the internet that various players from World of Warcraft are to be impersonated. This is known:

• Players who allegedly used an exploit to gain an advantage when farming reputation with the “The Severed Threads” faction were banned – this was explained by a Blizzard employee in the private Discord channel for the upcoming “Race to World First” (via icy-veins.com) to the affected professional guilds.
• All reputation progress and rewards gained through the exploit will be removed, according to Blizzard.
• Most of the players caught by Blizzard received a ban of four days (via X). There are rumors that in some cases bans of over ten days were imposed.
• As already mentioned, many professional players from guilds that are currently preparing for the “Race to World First” are also affected. Method is said to have been affected (via Reddit). The same goes for a variety of Echo players (via X).

Is your team ready to storm the Nerub’ar Palace?

Does Blizzard influence the “Race to World First”?

What do the bans mean with regard to the World First Race? With the ID change on September 10th or 11th, 2024, the warm-up begins in the Palace of the Nerub’ar. This week, the raid instance will “only” open on normal and heroic difficulty (plus Wing 1 of the LFR).

The first World First Race of the WoW expansion The War Within will only really get started with the ID change next week, when the mythic difficulty level opens and the first boss kills actually have meaning.

Nevertheless, the ban penalties are bitter for the professional guilds. They lose important days of preparation (for example, to equip as many characters as possible in the normal and heroic versions of the Palace of the Nerub’ar as best as possible for Mythic) AND the fame progress and the corresponding rewards that they are said to have cheated their way to via an exploit.

Ultimately, this can have a real impact on the “Race to World First” because guilds have to adjust their squads or start the race with an equipment deficit. Which guild do you think will win the race? Tell us in the comments! You can find out more about the schedule for the first season of the current expansion here: Roadmap for Season 1, Raids and PvP – the most important dates from WoW: The War Within.