GH Says That Nigma’s Relegation to Division 2 Hurt Their Confidence

Nigma Galaxy was demoted to Division 2 at the end of the last season after appearing extremely out of form in a competitive Division 1 in Western Europe (WEU). Maroun "GH" Merhej, the squad's position four player, spoke with DreamLeague about the team’s experience playing in Division 2 this season following Nigma’s third series victory on the trot. The initial drop from Division 1 was, as GH stated, a huge blow to their confidence. However, GH noted that after a couple of weeks in Division 2 now, the team atmosphere was better and they were continually seeking to improve. He also touched on the way Nigma has been preparing in scrims.

GH shares his thoughts on playing in Division 2 and the difference between scrims and officials

Following Nigma’s crushing 2-0 victory over 11Monkeyz in its third series of Division 2 this season, GH, a common face in Nigma’s post-game winner’s interviews once again showed up. GH spoke of how the setback of being relegated to Division 2 dealt a blow to their confidence, but the team is now doing well in the league with their sights set on returning to Division 1.

“Definitely getting relegated to Division 2 was like a knock towards the confidence. But we are trying to be as humble as possible and try to fix our mistakes and take it slowly. We believe we all have the same goal and we are working towards it. We feel good in this team. We feel really good and hopefully, we are going to get back to Division 1,” said GH.

GH and his teammates are clearly in the lead for the top seed after a stellar start to Division 2. They have not lost a single game so far and all three series have ended in 2-0 victories.

As a result of the demotion to Division 2, another question posed to GH was whether Nigma was still primarily playing against Division 1 teams in their scrims. Explaining that there is a difference between scrims and officials, he stated that they practiced with any team, regardless of which Division they came from.

“Well, we have been scrimming with almost everyone. We play Division 1 teams, Division 2 teams - any teams basically because we believe that scrims and officials are not really the same. We just use the scrim games to practice our strategies and what we believe in. And then the official game is just completely different.”, said GH.

In addition to aiming for Division 1, which they are very likely to achieve, Nigma will also be striving to qualify for The International 11 (TI11). TI11 is no longer accessible to Nigma through the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) points; instead, it must qualify through either the WEU regional qualifier or the last chance qualifier to be a part of the final 20 teams at TI11.