Who won The Desert Perpetual Raid World First Race in Destiny 2?

It’s Raid time, Guardians. The Desert Perpetual awaits all those who wish to test their skills and the skills of their fireteam in the pursuit of the coveted World First title. There will be puzzles, challenges, jumping puzzles, and DPS checks as the very best Destiny 2 players attempt to be the first to finish the Raid.

Who is winning The Desert Perpetual Raid World First Race in Destiny 2?

• 2:26 AM PT – And the confirmation is in from Bungie, it’s the World First victory. Incredible work by all the teams, and a really interesting design from Bungie, who really cooked with this raid.

Congratulations to the fireteam on their World First completion of The Desert Perpetual Raid on Contest Mode!

🏆 milito
🏆 Dabs
🏆 Enskeria
🏆 Silken
🏆 mitcH
🏆 Ham pic.twitter.com/RkrfJlAQFL

— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) July 20, 2025

• 2:00 AM PT – Looks like aTides and Indebted are second. They were so close to so many finishes. They have an incredible Raid race and really seemed like community heroes based on so many chats that I was watching.
• A tweet from Cozmo! They are on it, hopefully confirmation soon that Team Nut with Snazzzy, Ham, etc., are the first team to do it.

Stand by…

— Cozmo (@Cozmo23) July 20, 2025

• 1:51 AM PT – Normal mode of the raid is now available. That’s not an exact confirmation that Snazzzy, Ham, etc have gotten the official win, but it does strongly indicate this is the winning team, based on timing. Still waiting on Bungie to confirm. 
• 1:45 AM PT – Looks like Bungie is checking out the win now. 

We have received reports that a fireteam has completed The Desert Perpetual Raid on Contest Mode. pic.twitter.com/MILYkDmF01

— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) July 20, 2025

• 1:43 AM PT – I am not sure if they are memeing, but the first completion of the Raid, in Contest mode, just dropped Tier 1 loot. lol
• 1:41 AM PT – lol, you could hear one of the players ring his Mom to tell her they had won. 
• 1:39 AM PT – And that’s it, Ham and crew have wrapped it! We need to wait for Bungie to confirm.

• 12:56 AM PT – Mariomonkey and team climb the platforms, heading for a last damage phase. Into the final stand, pretty sure I heard a Wardcliff Coil firing there. Lots of damage. Wipe. They just didn’t have the overall damage, I don’t think they lost anyone during the phase.
• 12:47 AM PT – And that’s a nope. Guardian down, damage isn’t enough, then the wipe. Balancing getting enough damage into the boss for final stand and staying alive is so tough, and you have to imagine most of these players have fried brains at this point. 

• 12:45 AM PT – Ham and Team Nut are climbing the platforms for the final phase. It feels like they have a lot of damage to do and might not have the ammo to get it done. 
• 12:41 AM PT – aTides is in the final stand. They have good damage, smart super uses, no deaths yet. Oh no, Guardian down, and wipe. 
• 12:39 AM PT – This has gone on so long, with so many teams on last boss, it’s honestly surprising that a secret team working off stream hasn’t pulled off a win.
• 12:36 AM PT – Xemo is setting up for the final phase, and that team has solid damage. Xemo has a solo flawless Root of Nightmares completion to his name, which is frankly hard to comprehend.

• 12:28 AM PT – In final stand stage, and Ham is dead, back up. Nope, wipe. 
• 12:25 AM PT – Ham and Team Nut climb the platforms, heading into what could be the boss kill if they can get everything flowing.
• 12:15 AM PT – aTides in the final stand yet again. And deaths to the lasers. Those are just absolutely brutal. 
• 12:11 AM PT – Salt and Elysium are climbing the platforms for the last damage phase, but have a lot of health bar to do. Yeah, it doesn’t feel like this will be it.  

• 12:08 AM PT – And they are on the damage phase, burning, approaching the final stand line. They take so many quick deaths, I think five of them just got nuked by the lasers at the end. Incredible. 
• 12:04 AM PT – Haminator100, who is on Team Nut with Snazzzy, has started showing screen as they head into the final DPS phase. I believe they’ve been behind hidden screens this entire time, so I have no idea how close they might be. 
• 11:56 PM PT – Now it’s aTides and Indebted. Damage is flowing, trying to get to the final stand stage. They were a pixel away from the end and were wiped. The amount of damage required in that final stand is obscene. 
• 11:51 PM PT – Tyraxe and Parabellum in the third damage stage. Getting close to the final stand stage, and it’s popped. They are on the burning it hard, supers everywhere, Tyraxe dies, and it’s over, not enough damage now. Wow.

• 11:44 PM PT – Coming up on fourteen hours of solid DPS challenge. Two teams are moving into what could be the final DPS change. Parabellum, who might be blind to the final stand mechanic, and Indebted, who know what to do, but made a mistake on their last attempt. 
• 11:44 PM PT – Tyraxe is getting into damage phases with good damage output. They are well set up for their final phase, but I do not know right now if they have any previous experience with the final stand stage. This is tense.
• 11:34 PM PT – aTides and team are ascending the platforms and starting their damage phase. This boss just does not take damage, and they are slowly, slowly chipping down the bar toward that last stand line. And it’s a fail, wow. That’s just fatigue right there.
• 11:27 PM PT – So, after some research, it seems that aTides was a pixel away from the finish, so these are as close as ever. The DPS check once again seems real, I am seeing confident play on streams that I check, but we are once again in a spot where I can’t say how many teams might be close. aTides seems to be zoning in and getting damage done, however.

• 11:22 PM PT – And after a desperate need for some sleep (I’m in Ireland, remember), the raid race is still ongoing. I awake to find little progress, with almost everyone I have mentioned in the final boss, Koregos, The Worldline. Most people are just streaming the boss fight, but Snazzzy and Team Nut have committed to the black screen tactics. Or cat screen tactics, I guess.
• 8:00 PM PT – Team Nut is still working away behind the scenes. Other teams are in the final encounter, or at least what we assume is the final encounter, as well. Tyraxe and the squad are in there and are actually streaming, so check that out.
• 6:19 PM PT – aTides and friends are still the only team even close to wrapping the third boss, and even they are struggling to get to 66% in the first two phases. It leaves a lot of work in the final phase. It’s hard going, no doubt. Meanwhile, Team Nut continues whatever work they are doing behind the curtain.

• 6:02 PM PT – aTides into a final damage phase, then into a wipe pretty quickly. It’s getting grim now as the hours stretch on, and people are getting tired. As I said earlier, there are no puzzle breaks here. They make you think, yes, but they also give your reflexes a rest. These teams are just melting down before our eyes, and it’s turning into a brutal endurance race.
• 5:54 PM PT – Back to dead screens on screens of Team Nut members, which is a shame. aTides and crew get close to third boss clears, but that last damage phase is a stone-cold killer. Safe to say most of the other teams that were making progress have been stalled pretty hard by their third encounters. We are entering the part of the raid where updates slow down a little, as it’s really just a damage gut check, and we have no boss info outside of the fact that it’s another huge arena fight. No traversal, no puzzle that I know of, just raw DPS and mechanics. This has been such an interesting raid in terms of design.
• 5:44 PM PT – Screens are back over on Snazzzy’s stream!
• 5:42 PM PT – Snazzzy and co are in the lead, screens are blocked, one other team is close to finishing the third boss, and everyone else is giving hard-stuck vibes. As always, things will be going on that I don’t know about, so prepare for surprises.

• 5:37 PM PT – Okay, hopefully we get to see what happens after this, as Snazzzy just covered his screen. I’m not sure if this is just for the traversal, or if they plan on keeping it going for the boss. This is always the worst part of these raids, as screen hiding has become the meta. Still, right now, Snazzzy and Team Nut are in the lead, again.
• 5:33 PM PT – And they are into the third round and crushing in damage. It all depends on how they break these shields and the ammo drops. The shields are coming back fast; it feels faster than usual. THEY DID IT! Holy moly, that was tense. 
• 5:32 PM PT – Snazzzy and crew are really in a good spot right now after two damage rounds on Hydra. They probably have about 25% of boss health left to go with a damage round left. They might just get it done.
• 5:28 PM PT – Snazzzy just caught a huge damage round on Hydra, their third boss, and now has two more to go. You hate to curse them by inviting disaster, so let’s just leave it there and watch what happens.

• 5:22 PM PT – Watching SnazzzyRock’s group trying to do damage at the end of the Hydra is legit agony. They are just bouncing everything into the boss, and the health bar is crawling down. That said, they are super close to getting it done and moving on to the next section.
• 5:20 PM PT – Mariomonkey downs the second boss, on to the third!
• 5:11 PM PT – Over the seven-hour mark, still no team has downed the third boss of the Terrible Triumverate. It really is starting to feel like people will figure out that bosses get some sort of damage reduction as you go through them, because the DPS check at this point is nutty.
• 4:53 PM PT – And that’s aTides and team past their second boss. Snazzzy and his team seem to have hit a bit of a wall against the Hydra, but pretty much everyone has. It was the hardest boss to get rolling for teams who found themselves at it in the first round, and stalled out Saltagreppo’s group for quite a while. 

• 4:45 PM PT – No real changes that I can find. A handful of teams are chipping away on their third bosses, a bigger group on their second, and then everyone else is working on their first. Depending on the complexity of the last boss or what it takes to get there, this could be a long raid. Unlikely to be the longest in history, but already well ahead of a lot of the others.
• 4:35 PM PT – aTides was so close to killing the second boss. You can literally see that damage slow as he needs to reload, and the Hydra shield comes back. Absolutely sickening stuff. 
• 4:19 PM PT – ATP and team just got their second boss out of there. That’s four teams now. I keep seeing people mention other teams in various stream chats, but I can’t confirm. People tend to spam a lot of different things in chat to muddy the waters during these races.
• 4:07 PM PT – SnazzzyRock and co. are being absolutely brutal. The moment they decide their DPS is low, they just wipe. No messing around, no wasted time. They are on Hydra and seem to be really trying to shave off any waste. It makes sense because we are seeing teams wiping to the enrage, and the damage difference is some missed crits or suboptimal rockets. Just vicious DPS checks in this raid.

• 4:01 PM PT – SnazzzyRock, Tyraxe, LlamaD2, are all on their third boss. I’m looking around for any other group that might be there, but right now it’s a race for all these teams to get into what we can assume is the final encounter and start working things out.
• 3:54 PM PT – Tyraxe just took out the Hydra. So that’s two bosses down for Parabellum. Team Nut and SnazzyRock have some competition, but they have been really close to their third kill, so things are heating up. 
• 3:46 PM PT – ATP, Xemo, and friends are close to finishing their second boss. 
• 3:35 PM PT – A lot of teams are really struggling with the DPS check on their second boss. We still don’t know if there is a scaling of health that occurs behind the scenes; it’s impossible to tell right now. It could just be some fatigue setting in. Say what you want about puzzles, but they break up the fights, and these teams have now been deep in boss fights for five hours or so. That’s gonna fry your central nervous system. Get these gamers some electrolytes. For now, TheSnazzyRock and co. still lead the race.

• 3:29 PM PT – TheSnazzyRock and his team are still in first place, if you can consider that type of position to exist right now. They are the only team I know of that has reached the third boss. 
• 3:14 PM PT – Salt and Elysium just wrapped their first boss. They have plenty of previous wins, so you can never assume they won’t suddenly surge. The final boss can also be a huge equalizer in these raids.
• 3:11 PM PT – LlamaD2 are now shaping up to finish off their second boss, heading into their final damage stages against the Wyvern. They are really melting this thing down, and it’s looking good.WOW!!! LlamaD2 ran out of ammo right at the end, and the boss enraged with a pixel width of health left. Absolutely gutting.

• 3:02 PM PT – And right as I say that Gigz and co. drop the Hydra. 
• 3:00 PM PT – The Hydra is proving to be a real stiff test for people on their second boss. Due to the damage phase interruptions, you really need to get the shields down quickly again to get a decent phase rolling.
• 2:49 PM PT – I am looking around but cannot find another team on their third boss. It looks like Snazzy and his team are up there on their own. It should be noted that they were not the first team into the second encounter, so there is no guarantee they’ll be the first one out of the third. The DPS checks are real.
• 2:41 PM PT – And Snazzy and crew have done it, being the first team to wrap up the second boss. Now, onto the Hobgoblin!

• 2:26 PM PT – It looks like TheSnazzyRock and team are gearing up for a potential clear of their second boss, taking on the Wyvern.
• 2:13 PM PT – Clawtivity and the Hard In The Paint crew just wrapped their first boss. This team has previous World First wins under their belt, so it should be an interesting one to watch.
• 1:52 PM PT – And Tyraxe is through the first boss. It’s about a dozen or so teams onto their second boss now. Overall, the boss mechanics have been reasonably simple for these teams; we have seen them taking on far more obtuse challenges in the past. The real challenge is just nailing three DPS phases in a row.
• 1:48 PM PT – People are claiming that the Wyvern, as a second encounter, has different/more adds than if you did it as the first boss. If the bosses are scaling depending on when you do them, that would be a pretty crazy design.

• 1:38 PM PT – It’s so hard to keep up with who is on what boss, but I feel like at least four teams are one boss down now. We are also hitting the point where teams that haven’t appeared in the mentions yet are starting to get clears, making the race incredibly interesting. The big thing now is who breaks down the new encounters and gets comfortable in them the quickest, because if you have the DPS to kill one of the three, you can definitely take out the others.
• 1:30 PM PT – The prevailing theory among the community right now seems to be that taking out all three bosses will open the fourth path, leading to the final boss encounter. It’s made interesting by all three bosses being active at the same time, leaving the team to choose what they do. The lack of puzzles is interesting, so we might see some puzzle work on the way to the final boss.
• 1:21 PM PT – LlamaD2 is so close on Hydra, this is hype. It’s down! 
• 1:14 PM PT – Tyraxe is so close to a clear on Wyvern. Wiped to the enraged mechanic with just a tiny bit of damage still to go.

• 1:11 PM PT – I am loving watching all the traversal tricks people are doing. As someone who is pretty terrible at them, it’s great fun to watch.
• 1:03 PM PT – TheSnazzzyRock has just downed the Hydra. The fun part of this live blog is that you see chat on random streams just going off as someone gets a win against a boss. That I am aware of, now two groups have killed at least one boss.
• 12:58 PM PT – LlamaD2 and his team are getting good damage cycles on the Hydra boss. They seem to know exactly what they want from each round, because if they fall short on damage, they just self-wipe.
• 12:51 PM PT – Tyraxe wiped with a sliver of health. It was so close it was depressing, but I am seeing chatter of a couple of folks being very close on Hydra, so it’s time to check out some new streams.

• 12:46 PM PT –  Tyraxe is looking like his team might get a clear on the Wyvern. Heading into the third damage phase now, almost within a third of the health, so a good run might cut it.
• 12:39 PM PT – I have seen chatter about Team Parabellum being very close on Hydra and getting wrecked at the very last second! That’s the kind of thing that can break spirits early. I’ll be keeping an eye on gmeiners stream to see how it plays out.
• 12:36 PM PT – ATP just said on stream that they intend to find and fight the Hydra next. That is interesting, as it’s not a boss anyone has made good progress against. 
• 12:34 PM PT – ATP has cleared the first boss, and I can now say for the first time that someone is definitely in the lead.

• 12:28 PM PT – ATP is on course to be the first group to clear a boss. They are in the interim between damage phases two and three right now, but the two phases they have done have left them with just under a third left to do. It will really boil down to how much they learned the encounter, and ammo luck.
• 12:23 PM PT – There is a huge flux in weapons being used. Swords, machine guns, Glaives, Lord of Wolves, Queenbreaker’s Bow. Everyone is searching for the best option for their particular boss.
• 12:15 PM PT – aTides is getting some good damage against the Hobgoblin, ATP is getting good damage against the Wyvern, Saltagreepo and crew are taking on the Hobgoblin, but I actually haven’t seen a damage phase from them yet so have no idea how they are doing.
• 12:05 PM PT – ATP just came so close to a finish on the Wyvern, but couldn’t get the last 3-4% of damage, then wiped to the rage mechanic.

• 12:00 AM PT – ATP just finished a second damage phase against Wyvern, and we can assume they will get three. They are probably just a little shy of 66% damage. 
• 11:48 AM PT – The largest single damage phase I have seen against the Wyvern to date is from All The Players, getting to about a third.
• 11:46 AM PT – For the Hobgoblin, you have to prepare to deal with the Hobgoblin up close and at range. It feels like we are about to see a desperate search for the most OP sword in the game.
• 11:40 AM PT – aTides has hit a damage phase against the Hobgoblin, seemingly the first to do so. 

• 11:28 AM PT – I have seen reports that Vendetta and team have hit damage on the Wyvern. Lots of damage phases are starting to happen now, with most seeming to be the Hydra. It seems that getting too damage on that might have been easier to do just because actually fighting it is a nightmare. I wonder if the devs have made an effort to try and find a balance in the time spent figuring out and fighting each boss, if you go in blind?
• 11:24 AM PT – Mr. Fruit has hit damage on the Wyvern, and I have seen reports that Gigz has hit damage on the Hydra, Epooptes, Lord of Quanta.
• 11:22 AM PT – The meta for the Wyvern, Iatros, Inward-Turned, right now seems to be distance and machine guns. Teams are struggling to stop it from just walking up and stomping them, so the distance is helping.
• 11:16 AM PT – Mariomonk and crew hit a damage phase on the Wyvern, along with All The Players.  This seems to be the first time someone has gotten damage going on any of the three bosses, but I did see someone mention on Reddit that they had started one, but there was no confirmation there.

• 11:02 AM PT – Skarrow9 and his team are slowly getting something rolling with the Hydra, but wipes come so fast. It looks almost as if you enter the wrong sequence by shooting orbs above the Hydra’s head, that it just wipes you out.
• 10:54 AM PT – We are nearly an hour into the first encounter, and it looks like Sweatcicle and his team are close to figuring out a damage phase against the Hydra, but it seems that no team has worked out how to damage their particular boss at this point.
• 10:47 AM PT – So, it seems that the first encounter is a sort of hub of multiple bosses that teams will need to work their way through. The bosses people arrived at could be due to the route they took through the early traversal portion. It feels like they might need to go through and kill them all, but we still haven’t had a team ever get close to killing one of the bosses. Because it’s early days, I am not seeing any frustration in any group. I think most of them just seem impressed with the design. 
• 10:37 AM PT – Okay, so the groups have been churning against the waves of the first encounter for a while. It’s really hard to know who might have a lead at this point in the Raid, but it’s even tougher with the groups on different bosses. This is such a cool design, and you have to wonder if Bungie worked it in as a way to work against stream sniping. 

• 10:16 AM PT – Yeah, different groups have different bosses for the first encounter. At the moment, I have no idea if they need to take it out and move on, or if they will all cycle through the bosses in different orders.
• 10:13 AM PT – The first encounter is already underway after a brief traversal section, and it’s crazy. It looks like different teams have different bosses!
• 10:03 AM PT – Players are making their way through what you would traditionally expect from a Nine-theme dungeon. Lots of sand, geometric shapes, flags. Oh, and Vex!
• 10:02 AM PT – It has begun. People are loading in and getting ready to get after. Things might be a bit choppy as they all hit the servers.

The Desert Perpetual First World Race will begin at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET. You can expect the participants to stream it on their respective channels, so go check out your favorite streamers to see if they are going to take part. For those of you who want to be able to focus on one stream but know what is happening elsewhere, that is what I will be trying to do.

It is my tradition to sit here with 20 tabs open across many multistreams and do my best to keep up with who is in first place. So, check back after is starts for updates, as well as my thoughts on tactics being used and just the overall Raid design in general, as it is explored by the contestants. 

Remember, there are some important things to keep in mind about the race, so I have listed them below.

Hailing from Ireland, Aidan has been conditioned by local weather conditions to survive hours at his PC grinding through whatever game is offering the lowest possible drop rates for loot. He thinks the easiest way to figure out what fans of games want to read is to just be a fan of games. You can normally find him logged into Warframe, Destiny, or a gacha game. You can reach out to him on X @scannerbarkly.