Nigma Galaxy vs TSM Prediction: TSM yet to have taste of victory over Nigma Galaxy

One of the biggest international Dota 2 tournaments, ESL One Malaysia 2022, kicks off in Malaysia on Tuesday, August 23. Nigma Galaxy and TSM will play in the first matches of Group B on the first game day.

ESL One Malaysia 2022 is a major international Dota 2 tournament, presenting good training for the teams before the qualifications for TI11 and the event itself. From August 23 to 28, 12 teams from around the world will fight for a prize pool of $ 400,000, almost equal to the amount offered in the major.

Nigma Galaxy: a team with great potential

Nigma Galaxy (formerly known as Team Nigma) is a European eSports organization founded by former Team Liquid players and four of the five champions of The International 2017. After finishing second at The International 2019, captain KuroKy announced his departure from Team Liquid with the idea of starting his own organization. In the online era, this team was still more or less at the top of European Dota, but many problems surfaced when it came to qualifying for TI10. The difficulties came even earlier. Let us remember the majors in 2021 — Singapore failed (16th place) with zero group victories, and Kyiv was no less ugly in the game, but at least the team took the 5th-6th place. The quals for TI10 ended for them in third place.

In 2022 things went downhill for the team. Nigma Galaxy finished the winter tour in sixth place, in the spring in eighth, and as a result, the team was relegated to the second division. The culprit of the failure was found quickly - iLTW was kicked out of the team, and a week later, the organization announced the arrival of the legendary SumaiL.

The team went through the second division in the summer tour with flying colors, winning all seven battles, giving up one map only in the last, meaningless match. But is it possible to judge the team's strength by defeating teams from the second European division? I wouldn't say so. Motivation is much more important, and the Europeans shouldn't have any problems here.

Before ESL One Malaysia 2022, there was no major for Nigma Galaxy. We saw the SumaiL team at the Riyadh Masters 2022 in the UAE, where Nigma Galaxy made a good showing, making the playoffs but losing in the quarterfinals to PSG.LGD, who eventually won the tournament. There's plenty of motivation to win in Malaysia, but don't forget that TI11 qualifiers are just around the corner, so they should do their best.

TSM: dark horse of the tournament

It's hard to predict how the American squad will approach this tournament. TSM did not play in the home major, but four of the five players showed up on different teams, leading some (Fnatic) even to TI11. So the players clearly did not lose their game tone, but will they show their best?

The main mistake many people make is writing off TSM, and they do it since the Undying. The players, in their turn, showed themselves well on TI10, in the Swedish major (second place), and even were the first from North America who guaranteed their place on TI11.

TSM's regional league play this summer looked more like the team was just flubbing the summer DPC league neatly. Strangely, the American organization didn't make their squad work hard in the run-up to the home major, but they know better, as the main tournament is only three months away from 2022.

The TSM team is ex-Undying. To be honest, we really liked Undying for its identity. It's really a team that not just got together and somehow played in their region in a year, but guys were selected for TI10 and showed themselves quite well in some places. The main problem was the lack of organization, the money was a real problem, and we are very glad that such a famous organization as TSM signed these guys. Usually, when talented guys from this area start to make real money, the game quality suddenly walks out the door. However, the current TSM won their regional finals in February, bringing them closer to participating in TI11.

If we go over the TSM team personalities, the Czech offlaner SabeRLight, who played for the now disbanded Ninjas in Pyjamas not so long ago, stands out in the team. He is no stranger to North America, having been on loan to the Quincy Crew in 2019, so he knows the region well.

The current TSM was assembled based on Undying, which, in turn, was formed mainly by representatives of the disbanded CR4ZY team: mid Bryle, supports MoonMeander, and DuBu, noting that the latter still has experience as a coach. The Korean played at The International 2015 as part of the MVP and finished 7th-8th in the tournament.

The Peruvian Timado is an interesting carry for the TSM team, who shows a stable game. At TI10, we didn't really believe in these guys, but they managed to surprise us by taking points from every team. VP and T1 beat the Americans, but OG and Invictus Gaming could not defeat the feisty immortals.

Undying even beat their principled opponents from EG but lost in the first round of the playoffs. After TI10, the team didn't change the roster but only got organized, and now they're TSM.

Head-to-head encounters

These teams have played each other twice, both in the UAE LAN-tournaments: Riyadh Masters 2022 and GAMERS GALAXY Dubai 2022. The first one was won 2-0 by Nigma Galaxy, and the second one 1-0 also in favor of the Europeans.

Expert Betting Tips

The teams will share points, and I suggest betting on a draw at odds of 2.172 at 1xbet.

The teams will combine for Total Frags Over (102.5). The odds for this will be 1.83 at 22bet

Nigma Galaxy will reach Total (53.5) Frags, with odds of 1.83 at Bet365.