Team Nigma out of Dota 2 WePlay Animajor

As far as direct TI invitations are concerned, Dota 2 pro team Nigma are out of the race.

GG @EvilGeniuses. Our journey at the #WePlayAniMajor comes to an end. Thank you @WePlay_Esports for having us and for such an amazing event. To all our fans thank you for your continued support and we’ll see you at the EU Qualifiers.#StarsAlign pic.twitter.com/enyrAwNteQ

— Team Nigma (@TeamNigma) June 12, 2021

Evil Geniuses swept Nigma two-nil in the lower bracket playoffs. EG, one of the biggest contenders for the Dota 2 AniMajor, will be moving on to the last series with Vici Gaming, where the lower bracket finals will be decided.

Nigma's second season of Dota 2 pro circuit concludes with 670 points

Nigma had really struggled to find their footing in the Singapore Major at the end of season 1. They failed to find even a single win in the wild-card round robin stage, ousted with four losses next to the team crest. This DPC, however, Nigma showed some promise in both their qualifier and the group stage skirmishes.

In their opening series of the lower bracket playoffs, Nigma were on top of a coachless Virtus.pro side in both games. Kuro ‘KuroKy’ Salehi Takhasomi’s off-meta drafting somehow paid off in both games.

Nigma’s route through this major has been fraught with difficult adversaries. They had to go up against a row of the finest Dota 2 teams in the playoffs. The two top Dota 2 teams with the highest DPC point lead, for that matter

They faltered to Wang ‘Ame’ Chunyu’s Phantom Lancer pick with a risky early-game draft, and their redemption arc in the lower bracket was a struggle against EG, the current DPC top dog. However novel KuroKy’s Dota 2 strategies try to be, their over-reliance on the star midlaner Amer ‘Miracle-’ Al-Bakarwi is apparent.

Unlike game 1 against VP, there was no Refresher-Cataclysm cheese to bail Nigma out of this series. The first game was as one-sided as a match of Dota 2 can get. EG wreaked havoc with Timbersaw (Daryl ‘iceiceice’ Koh Xiang) and Puck (‘Abed’ Yusop) - two of the best midlane and offlane players in Dota 2 respectively. By the end of game 1, EG had 32 kills on their side against Nigma’s 6.

KuroKy’s more mobile gank-oriented draft in game 2 was easily thwarted, again, by two of the best counter-initiations in Dota 2 - a repeat Abed Puck and iceiceice Tidehunter. For good measure, EG also had a save in Tusk’s (Andreas ‘Cr1t-’ Franck’s) snowball.

Fans have always been hopeful about the KuroKy-led star-studded stack ever since they left Team Liquid to form Nigma. When their drafting clicks into place, Nigma is indomitable. But their consistency does not befit Dota 2’s finest.

Nigma have a fighting chance in the 6 slots off Dota 2 TI Qualifiers next month. It will again be a challenging series of scrims against the likes of OG and Team Liquid. Hopefully, with a bit of luck, Nigma will be back on the TI train again.