Huge Dota 2 upset tear KuroKy and Nigma’s TI tickets for the third year in a row

With Miracle- on the sideline for basically an entire season due to health issues, Nigma Galaxy was already looking at a mountain of struggles to overcome in 2023.

And, even with a serious roster change right before Summer, the Dota 2 team suffered a major upset, losing to an equally harried Alliance roster and therefore missing The International for a third consecutive year.

Nigma’s core four, if you count Miracle, centered around captain KuroKy was always a force to be reckoned with. Winning TI7 for Team Liquid and then making it back to the finals in 2019 before departing to form Nigma and rolling through a host of core players to fill that MATUMBAMAN-sized hole—which has still not worked for them.

Bringing in ATF and attempting to make him work with SumaiL in lanes did not pan out, with Nigma finishing sixth in the opening Dota Pro Circuit Tour before falling into Division II for Tours Two and Three. Even trying to salvage the year by bringing in young talent like Yuma and Mikey to replace their star core players wasn’t enough, leaving Kuro and company without a TI ticket for a third season in a row.

Prior to this streak, Kuro matched Puppey as being one of the only two players to attend every single iteration of TI, seeing it snapped by OG in the regional qualifier for TI10 in 2021.

Puppey ended his former teammate’s run in the WEU qualifiers last season and now Alliance has chipped in with a 2-1 victory this year to send Nigma home for another four months of Dota 2 roster shuffle rumors. 

Alliance has had mixed DPC success over the last few years too, but they have had much higher highs, including a trip to TI10 where they exited in a tie for ninth. Since then, the org dropped to the bottom of the WEU barrel and has remained there—going as far as to be entirely relegated out of the regional league in the Summer Tour this season.

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The only change they made prior to WEU qualifiers for TI12 was replacing ponlo with Swedish veteran Axel “Pablo” Källman, which seems to have been enough of a boost to carry them to a solid 2-1 series over Nigma where every game was a landslide. 

“I was hoping for a better start this year,” Alliance captain s4 said to esports.gg. “But at the end of the day, where I’m standing now I wouldn’t want it any other way. The hardest road going into this TI Qualifier is going to be the most satisfying if a win is achievable.”

Even Dota legend and Alliance CEO Loda changed his tune ahead of their opening match, stating that the team has “the best fucking mid, best fucking carry, best fucking offlane, and two best fucking supports” in the qualifier. 

That is a big departure from his previous comments, where the former player bashed the team and said they “look like a meme” in comparison to the other competitors during the DPC regular season.

Now he says he genuinely feels they have “a good shot to win the qualifiers” against a field that remains stacked even with Nigma out of the running.

Alliance’s next hurdle will be facing Ceb and OG on Aug. 29 before facing the loser of Quest Esports and Luna Galaxy the following day. In total, the Swedish org and its Dota 2 roster will need to win four more series over the coming three days to claim the second qualifier spot out of the WEU lower bracket.