Nigma are victorious at the first DPC event of 2020
We had reached the final day of the first Dota 2 Pro Circuit event of 2020 as the WePlay! Bukovel Minor would come to an end with the lower bracket finals followed by the grand finals.
The first order of business for the day at the Minor would be the lower bracket finals between Nigma and Geek Fam, as both teams were looking for a rematch against Royal Never Give Up to find some revenge for earlier defeats. Unfortunately for the Southeast Asian squad, even after a magnificent tournament, they were unable to match up to a Nigma that were still struggling in many ways. While the first game could easily have gone the way of GF, Nigma found their footing and claimed a quick 2-0 victory.
With that victory, Nigma secured a grand final showing at the WePlay! Bukovel Minor but they would have to make their way past RNG, the team which knocked them into the lower bracket, if they wanted to secure the spot at the DreamLeague Season 13 Major. For RNG, their tournament run thus far had been near flawless, as they seemed to finally be at the peak of their game. Game one served to prove just how brilliant RNG were as they perfectly played around the Nigma lineup and absolutely destroyed the TI9 runner’s up.
We were in for the long haul which became extremely clear with an 80-minute second game of the series. It was a magnificent but extremely chaotic back-and-forth battle between these two juggernauts of the game which saw the first ever tier 5 neutral items of the DPC come into play. While RNG were way out ahead with a 24k net worth lead, some major mistakes cost them that lead and Nigma would take advantage of this to tie the series. Nigma continued on their high, gifted a Phantom Lancer again in the next game but this one took only 23 minutes as they stomped over RNG and took the series lead.
The fourth and what would be the final game of the series would see another extremely long haul with a 64-minute game this time around. RNG once again looked to be set to take things to a decisive game five with a gigantic 40k net worth lead but Nigma seemed to have finally hit their stride with perfection. With nearly flawless teamplay, as we would expect from the squad, Nigma became the champions of the WePlay! Bukovel Minor.
With that, the first DPC event of 2020 comes to an end as Nigma will now move on to become the final team heading to the DreamLeague Season 13 Major which begins in just five days.