Nigma Galaxy promised fans roster news in mid-December, but they likely weren’t expecting to see one of the pillars part ways with his legendary captain as MinD_ContRoL officially left the team.
Since 2015 on the 5Jungz stack, MinD_ContRoL and KuroKy have been a dominant pair, eventually forming the core of Team Liquid’s Dota 2 roster alongside MATUMBAMAN and winning The International 2017. Even after falling short of a second TI at TI9, MC and Kuro stuck together, leaving Liquid alongside Miracle- and GH to form Team Nigma—building it up into Nigma Galaxy throughout three seasons.
Unfortunately, since leaving Liquid, Nigma has failed to perform at the highest level. In four seasons, the team has only attended a handful of Major tournaments and never made it to TI under their new banner despite showing flashes of success. A disappointing 2023 campaign that saw Miracle- missing time for health reasons and an unstable roster struggling to compete with mid-tier teams in the Western European Dota Pro Circuit seems to have finally broken the once indomitable lineup.
Throughout the year, while Nigma was mostly watching tournaments from home, MC spent time standing in for other rosters like OG at the Berlin Major and DreamLeague Season 21, along with Team SMG at TI12. His stints away from Nigma showed that the offlaner could still hang with the best players in the world and had fans questioning if he would stick with Kuro for another season of potential disappointment.
Now, it appears Nigma is officially heading in a new direction with its roster after saying goodbye to MC in the first departure of a former Liquid player since the team formed in November 2019. As a quartet, MinD_ContRoL, Kuro, GH, and Miracle- have a historic record of 610 wins and 384 losses for a 61.3 percent win rate since Jan. 2, 2017, according to datdota. “Indeed from 5Jungz to Nigma Galaxy it was one of the best times in my life,” MC said. “But everything has an end, time to say goodbye to my favorite team and people I have ever worked with. Thank you for everything you have done for me.”
It is still unclear if Miracle- will return from his semi-hiatus for the upcoming season or if Kuro will retire. Currently, the team still consists of GH and Kuro along with Yuma and Mikey, two players who were signed in May to fill various holes in the roster mid-season.
Without the DPC in place for 2024, Nigma had a solid chance to be invited to events or, at least, closed qualifiers just based on the roster’s pedigree. Without MC, and not taking into account other changes, those chances may have just taken a hit. MC will likely have multiple top-tier suitors trying to sign him in the coming weeks and Nigma has become an even bigger question mark with the limited free agent pool post-TI12’s mostly completed roster shuffle.
Update Dec. 20 5:25am CT: Since MinD_ContRoL’s departure, Nigma has confirmed that Yuma is also leaving the roster.
