Nigma Galaxy won the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament ESL Impact Katowice. In the final, Team Navi beat Javelins 2-0 (16-9; 22-19) to claim their fourth title in the women’s tournament series.
“We were down 14:9 and still won. That shows a lot about our team,” said Nigma player Ksenia “vilga” Klyuenkova. “Of course we’re preparing mentally. We can still turn every game because individually we’re simply better than everyone else here.”
In the ESL Impact tournament series founded in 2022, Nigma Galaxy had previously triumphed three times. Both the separate tournament at Dreamhack Valencia and the first two seasons went to the Eastern European lineup. While the final opponent there was always Furia, Nigma defeated the Brazilian rival in the semifinals.
In the final of the ESL Impact Katowice there were new challengers with Navi Javelins, who played as a Polish line-up on home soil. Nigma initially won the first card unchallenged, but things got exciting again on the second card.
After a good start, Navi only needed two laps to equalize in the series, but still gambled away the lead. With a victory in the second overtime, Nigma Galaxy finally made the fourth major tournament win in a row perfect.
The first ESL impact event of the year took place parallel to the playoffs of the IEM Katowice. Since BIG Equipa already failed in the qualification, the tournament took place without German participation.