Royal Never Give Up vs Nigma Galaxy Prediction: A look back at the Bukovel Minor final?

On Wednesday, July 20, the first game day of a charity Dota 2 tournament in the UAE will kick off with a hefty $4,000,000 prize pool. Royal Never Give Up and Nigma Galaxy will play in the first match of the tournament.

The Riyadh Masters 2022 is a Dota 2 LAN tournament that will run from July 20 to 24, 2022. The top ten teams from around the world will compete for $4,000,000. In addition to the cash prizes, the teams will also have an international show of strength ahead of the US majors starting in early August.

Dota 2 fans will finally get a chance to see live what the Chinese teams are capable of on the international scene in 2022. The RNG players will lift the veil of secrecy. We haven't seen this tag at international tournaments for a long time... After their performance in Ukraine during the WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020, the pandemic began, and after it, Royal Never Give Up performed badly in the domestic arena, and never managed to qualify for TI10.

In the 2021 offseason, the organization strengthened its roster and the result came. The RNG players finished third in the Winter Regional League and second in the Regional Finals (a mini-tournament instead of the majors). The RNG squad was able to qualify for the majors (which Chinese teams didn't qualify for) in the DPC Spring round, but they did so in a very uncertain manner. First of all, at the end of the championship, they lost all the matches to the direct rivals with a score of 2-0 - these are the games against PSG LGD, Aster, and Xtreme Gaming. The management of the Royal Club could not watch as their brainchild, just beginning to show something in 2022, is crumbling before their eyes and after the regional league made replacements.

On the 4th position RNG now plays kaka, and the 1st position is taken by a former SAG player - Ghost. The first "battle" test was unsuccessful because the renewed RNG squad totally failed the second regional final, losing two matches to PSG LGD (0:2) and Xtreme Gaming (1:2), thus satisfied with only the fourth position in the important mini-tournament of the last spring. But there were positive moments in the offseason! Royal Never Give Up won the tournament Gamers Without Borders, which included the Chinese and Asian teams, and in the Grand Final, they beat BOOM Esports, the participants of the Majors (2-0).

But the most important thing that happened this summer for Royal Never Give Up was winning its third summer tourney championship. The team lost only PSG LGD (0:2) and sensationally Dandelion Esport Club (0:2), but for the good of the team, it meant nothing.

It is noteworthy that the first international tournament for RNG will start with a match against Nigma Galaxy, it was the European Nigma that beat the Chinese team in the final of WePlay! Bukovel Minor 2020 final with a score of 3-1. Well, is it time to take revenge? The only disadvantage that may affect the results of this team is the change of the carry. The coach of Xie Super Junhao's team will play instead of Zheng ghost Jie. Nothing is known about the reasons for the replacement, and so far the organizers themselves are not listed on the page on Wikipedia, but if it's so - an absolute loss for the Chinese.

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 2nd 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 when it came to qualifying for TI10, a lot of problems surfaced.

The problems 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 it took the 5th-6th place. The quals for TI10 ended 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 pathos announced the arrival of the legendary SumaiL.

In the second division in the summer tour, the team went through with flying colors, winning all 7 battles, giving up one map only in the last, meaningless, match. But is it possible to judge the strength of the team 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. First of all, they're not going to the Majors, it's their only international start in the next month. Plus, the organization is sponsored by sheiks, so the tournament in the UAE is their home tournament.

The first game is always a bit wary. It has been a long time since the teams have seen each other, so I am inclined to exchange maps and accordingly a draw for 2.05.

On the first map, I expect a long game, the teams will more than overcome the temporary total of 36 minutes for 1.85.

On the second map, you can take a chance and play for the total frags. I think that a long map will allow the opponents to make more than 51.5 frags for 2.12.