Cover-Credits:
The matchup between KuroKy and Puppey, featuring their teams Nigma Galaxy and Team Secret, has been long awaited and the two teams finally clashed during the swiss stage of Elite League 2024. Given both teams have not been in the best shape lately, it was expected to be a close series, but Secret came well prepared with its drafts and the playstyle it wanted to execute to take the series 2-0. Secret carefully picked Miroslav "BOOM" Bičan’s offlane hero at the end of the drafting stage to win lanes and got the team off to a formidable start. A spot in the round robin stage of Elite League 2024 is at stake for Secret as it moves to the final round of the swiss stage whereas Nigma is eliminated from the event.
Nigma Galaxy vs Team Secret at Elite League 2024: Match recap and highlights
Recap
In game 1, Nigma chose a team with strong nuke damage early on, relying on Miracle-'s Faceless Void in the latter game. Secret's sidelanes performed effectively, as the offlane Dark Seer used Guardian Greaves and Pipe of Insight to nullify the nuke damage, allowing the team to build a 10k advantage in 23 minutes. Miracle-, however, assisted Nigma in regaining control of the game with clutch Chronospheres. The game went on longer, but Secret hung on as the heroes got tanky, picking up multiple items to win in 46 minutes.
In game 2, Secret executed impeccable map maneuvers early on to completely shut down Miracle-, killing him several times. On the other hand, Crystallis had a solid lane on Gyrocopter and all of Secret's heroes got off to a good start. With the map shrinking due to relentless aggression, Nigma's supports had low networth, and the offlane Dragon Knight and safelane Morphling required time to scale. Secret saw there was a window where their heroes were much stronger, so they charged into Nigma, slaughtered them, and won in 26 minutes.
Highlights
Here are some highlights of the series.
Following Nigma's victory over Aurora in the initial series of the event, it seemed that the team would be able to showcase a high level of performance, a trend often observed in international or LAN tournaments.
But as it turned out, Nigma did show resilience, but failed to win the next three series and was eliminated. There are no tournaments planned for the squad in the next few months, so the future looks quite uncertain.
On the other hand, even though Secret won against an out of form Nigma, its maneuvers and plays were impressive during the series, and it needs to play similarly against Aurora in its final series. With a win, it will advance to the next round, while a defeat means elimination from the Elite League 2024.
