Team Nigma and Vici Gaming have advanced to the Group Stage of the WePlay AniMajor after an intense and eventful conclusion to the Wild Card.
Vici Gaming were the unsung winners, after sweeping both AS Monaco Gambit and ONE Esports Major winners Invictus Gaming. VG outplayed both opponents in all games, and won by a wide margin.
However, the biggest storyline of the day involved Team Nigma and their rollercoaster run to make it into the Group Stage.
Team Nigma had to deal with a server crash against Team Secret at the WePlay AniMajor
Both teams needed to win to have a chance to advance into the Group Stage. Team Nigma played better at the start of the match, with their reliable Gyrocopter-Io draft.
Whenever Nigma’s cores were in danger, Maroun “GH” Merhej was ready with the Relocate save plays. After failing to slow down the enemy core heroes, Team Secret fell behind. This resulted in a quick game one victory for Nigma.
In the following game, Team Nigma once again started off hot, where midlaner Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi got an ultra kill spree at the 12-minute mark.
However, due to an unfortunate server crash, both teams were forced to remake the game from scratch.
This negated Nigma’s early game lead because Valve made the call to “continue the series by restarting the game with the same draft, same lanes, and same starting items,” according to WePlay Esports.
After the remake, Team Secret performed much better. They avoided Nigma’s early game rotations, and focused on winning their lanes.
Secret maintained their early lead and ended the series with a draw. After winning Game 2, Team Secret explained that they offered a complete remake with new drafts, but ultimately the final decision was made by Valve.
- Regional Qualifiers is the last hope for these teams to make it to TI10
- No[o]ne and SoNNeikO leave AS Monaco Gambit days before WePlay AniMajor
Team Nigma playing a best-of-one tiebreaker against Invictus Gaming
In the final final Wild Card match of the day, Team Secret intended get a win against Invictus Gaming for the sake of Nigma, but unfortunately, lost 0-2.
This meant that Invictus Gaming and Nigma were tied, and were forced into a best-of-one tiebreaker game, where only one team will be able to move on, while the other gets eliminated from the WePlay AniMajor.
Playing with a sense of urgency, Team Nigma focused on taking early team fights, and had Miracle-’s Quas Wex Invoker gank the sidelines of IG. This shut down Thiay “JT-” Jun Wen’s Axe, and gave Nigma early game map control.
Team Nigma secured their spot in the Group Stage after winning an unbelievable clash against IG at the 27-minute mark.
Despite fighting into IG’s high ground, Nigma was able to walk away victorious by dropping all their ultimates at the start of the team fight. With IG lacking buybacks on their cores, Nigma went straight for the Dire Ancient and won the game.
The WePlay AniMajor continues later at 7:00 p.m. GMT+8 with the Group Stage. To learn more about the tournament’s results, schedule, format, prize pool, and where to watch, click here.
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