In an unexpected turn of events, Nigma Galaxy (NGX) are actually headed to the second group stage of DreamLeague Season 26. Their map record of nine wins and three losses is tied with Aurora Gaming in Group A, which is mathematically sufficient to guarantee that they’ll be moving on in the tournament, regardless of whether they win or lose their final set tomorrow.

DreamLeague Season 26: Nigma Galaxy Lock Down Group Stage 2 Slot

They did this by beating BetBoom Team two games to none in their best-of-two series earlier today, with the second game in particular being a showcase of sheer resilience in the face of difficult odds.

Game 1 — Medusa Runs BetBoom Down

The first game helped set the tone for the series in favor of NGX, as Daniel “Ghost” Chan would become the focal point of the matchup right off the bat. He played Medusa in this game, and with the help of an International champion in the form of Maroun “GH” Merhej, he crushed his lane against Matvey “MieRo” Vasyunin and Vitalie “Save-” Melnic — who were playing Timbersaw and Shadow Shaman, respectively.

Getting off to such a good start allowed him to rush Manta Style and Butterfly, with the latter coming in after just 18 minutes. Nigma Galaxy went for Roshan immediately after, and things basically just went downhill from there for BetBoom. With no real way to deal enough damage to keep Ghost down, and Syed “SumaiL” Hassan backing him up in teamfights as Leshrac, BetBoom threw in the towel after just 32 minutes of play.

Game 2 — Ghost and yamich Keep Nigma Anchored

As I mentioned, the second game is what really tested Nigma Galaxy in terms of whether or not they could secure themselves a group stage 2 berth today. Ironically, NGX actually came out of the laning phase in game 2 looking pretty good, but it was their questionable mid game that allowed BetBoom to suddenly build a big lead.

It didn’t help that SumaiL wasn’t having the best game as Tinker, and that he was playing mid Tinker in this current day and age in the first place. And against Storm Spirit, to boot. But Ghost and stand-in Daniyal “yamich” Lazebnyy were there to rescue their team, as they just hunkered down for the long haul and proved that BetBoom can bleed even with a huge advantage.

With his Satanic and Overwhelming Blink in tow, Ghost stood and delivered as Dragon Knight in the deep late game. Shrugging off Ilya “Kiritych” Ulyanov’s Monkey King and Danil “gpk” Skutin’s Storm Spirit, he was the anchor that Nigma Galaxy needed to stay in the game. And speaking of Monkey King, yamich being a Monkey King player some time in the past definitely helped NGX survive this game, as yamich used his Monkey King experience to really make Kiritych’s life miserable.

There were several points where he even got a clutch Quelling Blade tree cuts on Kiritych that was basically just a guess on where he might be. Those are the kinds of hard read that win you games in clutch situations, and yamich proved that he was up to the task. Not bad at all for someone that got called up to play for NGX just two days ago and will stand in for OmaR at DreamLeague.

From there, BetBoom just crumbled under the sudden swing in momentum. With the rest of Nigma bearing down on them, they had no choice but to tap out — despite the fact that they led for as much as 12,000 gold at one point in the game.

The Road Ahead

This result is fantastic for Nigma Galaxy, make no mistake about it. They’ve been hovering around the middle of the pack this season at best, and bombing out of tournaments at worst — so they’ll definitely take as many windfalls as they can get at this point. Winning so emphatically against one of the best teams in the world (and one of the squads invited directly to TI14) has got to be a huge confidence booster for them.

That said, they’ve still got work to do if they want to go further at DreamLeague Season 26. The second group stage is likely to be even more intense than the first one, so they’re going to have to figure out how to stay consistent from here on. We’ve seen them get in their own heads at tournaments like PGL Wallachia Season 4 a lot before, so I’m not ruling out another epic Nigma collapse down the line. It’s going to be up to them to steel themselves and stay hungry, even knowing the position that they’re in now.

Shoutouts go to yamich for helping this team get this far at DreamLeague, honestly. Like I said, he is pretty much a direct upgrade to Omar “OmaR” Moughrabi, and it’s clear that he’s already formed instant chemistry with the other members of the squad. Could Nigma Galaxy perhaps now be thinking of signing him to an actual contract? He is technically signed to 9Pandas, but since he is on their inactive list, there might be a timeline where he joins NGX for the TI14 Western European regional qualifiers.