Alliance are looking like a top team again after they dominated Team Nigma, 2-0, in their group stage matchup at the WePlay! Pushka League.
Alliance star carry, Nikolay “Nikobaby” Nikolov, put up an insane 18/0/17 statline on Riki to lead his team to a commanding win in game one of the series.
Nigma ran with a four-protect-one strategy in the opener headlined by Amer “Miracle” Al-Barkawi on Phantom Lancer, with Aliwi “w33” Omar on Pugna, Ivan “MinD_ControL” Ivanov on Nature’s Prophet, Maroun “GH” Merhej on Elder Titan, and Kuro Salehi “Kuroky” Takhasomi on Vengeful Spirit to back up their carry.
Meanwhile, Alliance opted for a strong midgame tri-core with Nikobaby on Riki, Linus “Limmp” Blomdin on Death Prophet, and Gustav “s4” Magnusson on Centaur Warrunner. Simon “Handsken” Haag was on Winter Wyvern while stand-in support player Artsiom “fng” Barshak was on Chen to provide healing and teamfight control.
Alliance came out of the laning phase swinging, as they took down four Nigma heroes in a huge fight at the 14-minute mark. That maneuver drastically slowed down Miracle’s farm and prevented Nigma from hitting a critical timing in the midgame just as Alliance started to peak in strength.
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Nigma was able to prevent Alliance from capitalizing on their midgame dominance then finally won a straight-up fight 31 minutes into the game when they came out ahead in a three-for-two trade in the bottom lane.
However, Nikobaby’s Riki was becoming too much to handle for Nigma by that point as he was simply mowing them down whenever he was left unchecked.
While Nigma was able to mount an admirable defense, Nikobaby and the rest of Alliance had become far too much to handle and were eventually able to overwhelm them to win the game after an action-packed 45 minutes.
Nikobaby ended the game with an excellent 18/0/17 KDA, while Limmp had a noteworthy 13/3/12 record of his own, to lead Alliance to a convincing win in game one of the series.
Alliance went on to dominate Nigma in game two to secure the series sweep and eliminate them from playoff contention at the WePlay! Pushka League. That defeat also breaks Nigma’s streak of three-straight championships at WePlay! events that started at the WePlay! Bukovel Minor in early January.
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