The kings of lower brackets, Nigma makes a comeback from 40k networth disadvantage

From 2019 Kuroky’s team has performed exceptionally well at the lower brackets and the WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020 was yet another example. RNG had performed brilliantly throughout the tournament and Nigma not only defeated them by a 3-1 series win but also by making a comeback from 40,000 networth disadvantage. Read the article below to understand how RNG didn’t capitalize on their lead and lost the grand final’s final match.

Game 4 Picks and Bans

RNG’s Spectre and Nigma’s Drow Ranger were the heroes that they hadn’t picked in this tournament.

Draft Advantage in detail

RNG had advantage in split pushing, healing and counter picks whereas Nigma had advantage in right click damage, initiation, disables and defending. The draft calc total advantage was in favour of RNG at 57%.

Overall Comparison

After overall comparison, the final win chance was almost equal hence everything depended on execution and planning.

The Timeline Overview:

16 min: Nigma ganked RNG’s jungle, still lost a bit, RNG gained 5k lead
26 min: RNG got aegis, Roshan uncontested
27 min: RNG’s push for tier 2 went unsuccessful
28 min: Nigma counter pushes and decreases RNG’s lead from 7k to 3k after a team fight
37 min: Both the teams kept on farming but RNG had map control and after a couple of team fights they increased their lead from 3k to 13k
42 min: Nigma ganks RNG but lose the team fight and causes 25k networth difference
51 min: RNG with 40k lead decides to push for high-ground while all of the Nigma heroes were alive and they just got annihilated by a 5 men vacuum + wall + echo combo and Nigma actually team wiped tho opponent who had aegis and cheese without losing a single hero on their own side
52 min: After that team wipe, Nigma decided to counter push, forced a couple of buybacks, destroyed mid barracks and now the networth difference was brought down from 40k to 23k
61 min: RNG controlled the map magnificently and Nigma patiently waited for a high ground defensive team fight but RNG’s networth lead was now at 39k and this moment RNG had aegis, cheese and refresher shard so they decided to push for bottom barracks. All the 10 heroes in the game had buy back before this fight.
63 min: RNG lost every hero after buying back and lost the game

Mistakes committed by RNG in the last few minutes

RNG never decided their team fight execution, hence whenever Spectre used ulti, nobody was on the same page, some were hitting buildings and some were trying to find picks. Their execution strategy should have been this: When I (Spectre) use my ulti, QoP should jump on Drow, I will jump on Earthshaker and Doom should jump on OD and Omniknight would protect the one taking most of the damage. The main thing is Omniknight had refresher shard so they Guardian Angel for 2 times which is incredible and they had Spectre who can globally find Earthshaker and stop his initiation and on top of that they had Doom with a refresher to doom OD and stop him from doing anything. It is unbelievable that they chose to waste their ultimates just to get a barracks at 63 minute in the game when their draft was more efficient in killing rather than pushing.
RNG had so much gold but nobody bought a force staff and they had no option to stop Drow and OD from focusing on Spectre without putting another hero in danger.
When buyback required gold was only 3k, Spectre had 7k gold, QoP had 7k gold and Doom had 8k gold before that team fight and they didn’t utilize that gold to buy items. Spectre had Aghanim’s so she could have bought a recipe worth 1800 gold to finish Aghanim’s Blessing or a Moon shard worth 4k. QoP could have bought a moon shard worth 4k or boots of travel to split push. Doom could have bought moon shard, assault cuirass or boots of travel. They could have bought those items and they still would have money for buyback.

They had full map control and all buybacks so they could have waited for a couple of more minutes to let some heroes reach a level. Omni and Doom were almost level 25. QoP and Spectre were almost level 29. The advantage of level 25 and level 30 is so tremendous that it feels like you have an extra expensive item.

End Game Statistics

A tip for young players

Every game must have a team fight execution strategy. Nigma won the game because they had decided that Earthshaker will jump the moment Dark Seer jumps and if you go through the highlights, you will see that in every fight Earthshaker waited patiently for his turn to execute. Meanwhile RNG had no execution strategy and they ideas were scattered hence they lost the game which they definitely should have won.