GH and MinD_ContRoL Talk About Nigma’s Current Work Environment

In light of the caliber and reputation of the team’s players, Nigma Galaxy’s demotion to Division 2 was a surprise to the entire Dota 2 community. Now, Nigma Galaxy must go the hard way to qualify for The International 11 (TI11) which would be through the regional or the last chance qualifiers. With TI11 in sight, Nigma’s offlane duo of Maroun "GH" Merhej and Ivan Borislavov "MinD_ContRoL" Ivanov talked about the team’s work environment during a DreamLeague broadcast. While bootcamping in the Netherlands, both GH and MinD_ContRoL said that they were exerting tremendous effort and hard work in their practice sessions in order to accomplish their goals.

GH and MinD ContRoL stress the importance of working hard in Dota 2 on the road to TI11

Syed Sumail "SumaiL" Hassan joined the team after the relegation to Division 2 and GH mentioned that the team hopes to be able to sync up with him, and looking at the current state of affairs, it seems things are moving along well.

“We changed a player, now we welcome SumaiL into our roster. At the moment, we are bootcamping in the Netherlands and we are feeling good about it. We are practicing together and the mood in the team is good. We just hope to be able to have enough time to work together and achieve what we wanna achieve. I feel like this team is getting on the same page and to play the game correctly in the same way, we are putting in the hard work. And as long as we do that, I think we are on the right track.”

While GH appeared disappointed that their team finds itself playing in Division 2 now, he said that it is important for them to keep emotions in check.

“We lost a lot of games in the past DPC (Dota Pro Circuit) so we ended up in Division 2, not much to talk about honestly. We just hope to start from scratch and bring it back up. The mentality doesn’t really change. Every time we are in a tournament, DPC, or any leagues, I think we just take it game by game otherwise the pressure adds up and nerves get to you,” said GH.

In light of the relegation, Nigma has basically lost one of the valuable ways to compete at TI11. As a Division 2 team in the last Tour of the season, they are no longer able to earn Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points to be able to receive a direct invite.

Nonetheless, with the regional and last chance qualifiers still to be held, MinD_ContRoL spoke about the amount of effort they are putting into their scrims and strategies.

“Pretty much we play all our scrims. We watch all the replays and even individually, we watch replays for ourselves. We are spending all the time preparing. Even for each team that we have to play, we prepare a lot like - we watch all their games that they play even though they don’t play many games. So, we are spending a lot of time on Dota,” said MinD_ContRoL.

So far, the team’s hard practice regime has paid off as they won both of their first two series - the first one against IVY and the second against DGG Esports. Nigma will next play against 11Monkeyz on 20th June.