Playoffs in Raleigh are just hours away now, and there’s one team that the Dota 2 community has its eyes on moving forward: Nigma Galaxy. The fan favorite squad, containing legendary names such as Amer “Miracle-“ Al-Barkawi, Syed “SumaiL” Hassan, and Maroun “GH” Merhej, is still one of the most popular professional Dota squads in the world — but it’s no secret that they’ve not been that great in terms of pure results for a few years now.

ESL One Raleigh: Can Nigma Galaxy Get Themselves to the Grand Finals?

Fortunately for them and their fans, they were able to dodge elimination in this tournament, even though they lost all six of their games after going 4-0 in the first day. They’ve now got a shot at actually making some noise in the lower bracket after their initial winning streak. And as luck would have it, they happen to be up against one of the teams that they do pretty decently against most days: BetBoom Team.

But before we get into their chances at actually making the Grand Finals at ESL One Raleigh, I’m going to talk about how they’ve gotten here in the first place and just about everything that they went through leading up to their journey to recapture their relevancy in tier 1 Dota.

Getting Over the Lean Years

Nigma Galaxy, then known as Team Nigma, was born after the International 2017 champions Team Liquid left the organization in 2018 to form their own squad. Founder and captain Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi built the team with the exact same roster that they had at TI9, choosing to go his own way separate from Liquid after they lost to OG in the grand finals in four games.

Practically all five members of the lineup were still at the top of the Dota 2 food chain at the time, and so expectations were high going into the 2019-2020 season.

Just looking at those years in writing should set off alarm bells already; the COVID-19 pandemic happened not long after they initially announced the formation of the team. Everyone was suddenly forced to stay home and play online tournaments, which isn’t quite the same as cutting your teeth under a new name in a LAN environment.

True enough, the three years that followed were some of the worst in the roster’s history. Things looked fairly promising to start with after they won WePlay! Dota 2 Tug of War: Mad Moon prior to the lockdowns, but things slowly but surely went downhill from there. They placed first at OGA Dota PIT Season 2, third at OMEGA League later, and third at Dota PIT Season 4 later that year, but that was the last they would ever get to the podium for a long while.

2021 to 2024 were even worse. They were consistently a middling squad at best throughout this period, and downright awful at worst. They struggled to even get out of regional qualifier tournaments, and were firmly stuck in tier 2 despite all the supposed Middle Eastern funding they had at their disposal. Roster changes did take place in between, but KuroKy’s seemingly stubborn nature and staunch refusal to step away from the game stunted any real growth that they could have had.

A Necessary Overhaul

At that point, it was becoming clearer and clearer that the competitive scene had left them in the dust. It wasn’t 2017 anymore, and even absolute legends like Miracle- and SumaiL weren’t immune to declining in terms of their skill level. Once 2022 rolled around, it was Gaimin Gladiators that dominated the competitive scene, while Nigma Galaxy was drowning in the meridians between tier 1 and tier 2.

Nigma Galaxy ESL One Malaysia
Copyright: Adela Sznajder, ESL FACEIT Group

Thankfully, after years of mediocrity, and after finally realizing that he might have been the problem all along, KuroKy moved to a less active role late in 2024 in order to make way for another retooled roster. And after bringing in Tony “No!ob” Assaf and Omar “OmaR” Moughrabi, things started to improve drastically.

Nigma Galaxy was finally a name the community started to see again at premier tournaments, starting with Clavision: Snow Ruyi where they finished third, and ESL One Bangkok where they placed in the top 6. They improved even further at BLAST Slam 2, where they managed to finish on the podium in a LAN for the first time since Tug of War: Mad Moon.

Repairing Their Legacy, One Step at a Time

Now, they’re in the running in the playoffs at ESL One Raleigh, and I’m sure they’re hoping to notch at least another podium finish at this tournament. Momentum isn’t quite on their side right now given that they did lose six straight games over the last two days as I mentioned earlier, but at the very least they’re not just going home with their tails tucked in between their legs before even seeing the brackets play out.

If they truly want to get the Nigma Galaxy name back to where it should belong, like GH said at Blast Slam 2, now is the time for them to pull out all the stops. They’ve got a pretty good bracket draw given their history against BetBoom, but beating them would only guarantee a top 6 finish.

No, they’re going to want more out of the opportunities they can get. They only have one life remaining in the tournament, and a bunch of sharks to get through even if they win their first lower bracket match. It’s either Team Falcons or Team Spirit that they’ll be facing in the next round, which either way isn’t a match I fancy their chances in.

Worse still, and I know I sound like a broken record at this point — they’ve lost six games in a row over the last two days. That doesn’t bode well at all for their confidence moving forward, and it wouldn’t shock me in the slightest to see them fail against BetBoom anyway. BetBoom isn’t the most stable team in the world, by any means, but they’re still better than Nigma in terms of pure talent and recent form.

It’s not looking good for them, if I’m being completely honest. But there are three former International champions on this roster, and truly anything can happen as proven by Heroic in Wallachia in a Dota 2 match. If they can channel their vast experience and remember just who the hell they are, we might just see them give their fans what they’ve been waiting for since the pandemic years.