Nigma Galaxy Struggling: Will they Stay in Division I?
Nigma Galaxy, one of the popular teams that have kept its roster intact for many years, has stumbled into a slump. During the Winter tour of the 2023 DPC, the team barely kept up in Division I avoiding relegation. The Spring Tour has started, and the Western Europe region is getting tougher. Nigma has already faced off against three strong opponents and lost. They were able to pull off single-game wins when going against Entity and Team Liquid but lost 0-2 against Tundra. However, they managed to get their first win against Monaspa yesterday. Let's take a look into what they did differently.
Nigma Vs. Monaspa
Game 1
In the first game, Nigma first picked Brood Mother, which was unusual. Fans and casters alike could not pin the hero on any of the NGX players. MATUMBAMAN, their former Team Liquid member, was the Brood player on their roster. This time ATF played Brood mid and dominated the game. He tanked Monaspa's damage and was able to man-fight their Centaur 28 mins into the game. Even though Alchemist was ahead of all the Nigma cores in net worth, the rest of Monaspa was struggling. The damage output from Brood and SumaiL's Morphling was too much for Alchemist. Monaspa called 'gg' 31 minutes into the game.
Game 2
Game 2 was another surprise pick. SumaiL played Phantom Assassin against Nande's Clinkz. GH played remarkably well as Disruptor in this game, diving towers 5 mins into the game to kill the enemy support. ATF's Timbersaw and MinD_ContRoL's Nature's Prophet provided a lot of space for SumaiL to farm. The Nigma supports stacked multiple camps for their cores. Even though Monaspa was able to get an early Tier-2 tower, they were not able to fight full-on with the Nigma lineup. Clinkz tried to solo-kill PA many times, but GH was there for the save. The burst damage from Timbersaw and PA along with NP's global presence broke Monaspa. Nigma ended the game at 47 minutes.
Monaspa's Clinkz gameplay:
Monaspa showed something new for the casters and viewers to see. Their Lycan used Helm of the Overload to dominate a creep, boosting the creeps' base HP and damage. Then Clinkz used Death Pact to gain that bonus damage and health, gaining almost double the damage and health.
Hopefully, this will not be followed in our pubs.
Nigma's change
Nigma has been switching up the roles of its cores. This Tour 2 we watched MinD_ContRoL and SumaiL play pos1 and ATF play mid and offlane more. Kuro is determined to figure out the team's strengths and formulate new strategies. Although, GH stated that "they don't know" in the post game interview.
Ammar using gloves?
During the series with Team Liquid, ATF was spotted using a glove for his right hand. This could be due to his recent injury in November of 2022, restricting him to play against AI for a while. Excessive grinding pubs can be taxing for players' mental and physical health. Let's hope for the best and watch this team move forward.
Featured Image: Nigma Galaxy