Nigma off to a hot start in the Leipzig Major group stage

January 18, 2020 Crisanto Baracao

A Major champion vs Minor Champion series opened the second Major tournament of the season, as TNC Predator were pitted against Nigma in the first series of group A of DreamLeague Season 13: The Leipzig Major.

Nigma were the last to join the 16 team line-up of this Major after a hard fought victory through the lower bracket rounds at the Bukovel Minor 2020. Their games weren’t exactly clean at the Minor, and not many were ready to jump on the hype train, even though they claimed the trophy last week to secure themselves a spot at the Major. Their struggles are not over yet, given the loss against TNC in the opening game. The SEA champions outmaneuvered Nigma with an Io-Faceless Void duo that imposed a fast paced game and left no room for the Europeans to recover. By the 23 minute mark, Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi and co were already defending on the high ground, and although they were able to keep the barracks intact through the first push, they were heavily under farmed and had to make the GG call ten minutes later, when TNC was pushing with an Aegis in their pockets.

Despite the pretty demoralizing loss in game one, Nigma came ready to challenge TNC in the next game. They put  Aliwi “w33” Omar on Outworld Devourer, a hero on which he is undefeated since the open qualifiers for this second set of Minor and Major DPC tournaments, while they had stronger support heroes to secure the sidelines. Both teams tried to play a bit of mind games right from the laning stage and ended up having unconventional heroes in both top and safe lane. TNC was playing with a Shadow Fiend – Vengeful Spirit duo in the Radiant offlane, while Nigma had Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi on Ember Spirit in the Dire offlane, next to Maroun “GH” Merhej on Tiny. Through the first 8 minutes Nigma were dominating TNC’s Shadow Fiend and were leading 8-2 on the kill score, however, a rotation from Puck, from mid to top, put an end to the massacre and allowed TNC to recover all the gold deficit by the 10 minute mark. The game went back and forth for nearly 25 minutes, when Nigma’s cores became nearly impossible to kill. A lucky Spider Legs neutral drop used on Tiny and Nether Shawl for OD, to improve his ultimate wit 8% Spell damage, made the team fights favour Nigma even more and TNC were pushed into a decisive game three.

Unfortunately for the SEA fans, the Chengdu Major Champions looked rather lost in the final game of the series. Despite drafting a mid lane Huskar, along with Vengeful Spirit for the aura buff, and Drow Ranger on their side, TNC managed to land only one kill throughout the entire game and got knocked down in the Group A losers’ series. Group A matches continue today with Fnatic versus Team Aster. The winner between these two will move on into the winner’s matchup against Nigma, while the loser will fight against TNC.  The winners’, losers’ and decider series of all four groups will be played tomorrow, January 19.

Source:vpesports.com