Cover-Credits:
OG
Having struggled for too long, Nigma Galaxy has fallen into Division II yet again with the recent subpar performance in the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) Western Europe (WEU) 2023 Tour 2: Division I. Despite numerous roster changes, role swaps, new coaching staff, and overhauled playstyles, the team comprising former The International (TI) champions continues to struggle.
Recently, Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski discussed with Sébastien "Ceb" Debs whether Nigma could relocate to North America (NA) to compete in a relatively easier DPC league. Ceb stated that it is a matter of pride for Nigma's players as well as a belief that they can succeed despite the highly competitive environment of the WEU region.
Ceb and Gorgc discuss the possibility of Nigma relocating to NA DPC
As Gorgc watched the WEU DPC Tour 2 tiebreakers on his Twitch stream with Ceb, he speculated the different reasons Nigma doesn't move to NA after facing little to no success in WEU in recent years.
“I don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet. Why does no Europe team like Nigma, Secret…why don’t they just go to NA? Is it too hard to get some passports or something? It’s not worth it? The pride thing?”
Ceb suggested that it is indeed a matter of pride, along with the idea that Nigma players recognize themselves as among the best in the world.
“Yeah, I think it’s the pride thing. You have to realize that Nigma players are TI winners. I am not saying they are cocky, they are probably everything but cocky, especially after all the hardship they went through. But they still must think that they are good enough to be amongst the best in the world.”
Ceb reminisced about TI7 and the period surrounding the event, when Nigma (then playing under Team Liquid) was a force to be reckoned with, and with its success over the years, it is not a team that would take the easy road out.
“It’s not like they won TI. They were dominating everyone for so long. Team Liquid TI7 - it was not only just a TI winning team, arguably they were much stronger than most of the TI winning teams. They were smashing everybody. It was (on TI7 being a 3-0 final). But also they won the, I can’t remember which tournament but they won so many tournaments before - DreamLeagues - whatever the golden era was with Miracle- and MATUMBAMAN. These guys are not thinking of an easy way. They are like - we can do this.”
After Gorgc noted that many teams have recently shifted regions, which has led to more teams wanting to adopt this practice, Ceb replied that changing regions isn't necessarily a bad thing.
“Maybe it (Nigma) would help them bring their confidence back in a way because these guys are much better on LAN than they are online. There’s that too. Nothing is a bad move.”
As Gorgc pointed out, the region switch is true for some other teams like Secret as well, which have faced stiff competition in WEU for many years. However, after Secret's appearance as the grand finalist at The International 11 (TI11) last year, Ceb said it's likely that the team will not remain in Division II as long as Nigma did.
As it has panned out, WEU has been the most competitive region in the last six months, and the four available Major slots now appear to be insufficient for the region.
Meanwhile, in NA, where gameplay levels have fallen over the years, teams like Nigma who occasionally show some great gameplay against top competitors in WEU, are likely to be frontrunners for Major slots.
