Nigma Galaxy vs HellRaisers Prediction on December 27, 2022

Match info

While all Dota 2 fans look forward to DPC 2023, there are interesting tournaments preceding it, such as the BetBoom Xmas Show. This Tier-2 competition moved on to the playoffs where Nigma Galaxy and HellRaisers will meet online on the last Upper Bracket quarter-final on the schedule on Tuesday, December 27, starting at 1 p.m. local time (3 p.m. Moscow time).

Meeting statistics

DPC 2023 will begin in a little over two weeks, but this doesn’t imply that competitive Dota 2 is on hold. Eastern Europe is one of the regions where MOBA games’ professional stages are hosted. A sort of analog to DPC, the BetBoom Xmas Show, was determined to reach new heights: top teams from Eastern Europe were invited to the New Year’s Eve event, along with the clubs from Western Europe.

We’ll see an inter-regional derby with a top Dota application in a tense encounter. The roster reshuffles were conducted by both Nigma Galaxy and HellRaisers, albeit in different extents. While Nigma Galaxy only made one player change, the HellRaisers made significant roster adjustments that will undoubtedly have an impact on how well the teams perform.

We aim to determine who’ll prevail in this struggle and go to the semi-finals of the upper bracket, and who’ll be stuck in the lower bracket further on.

The current form of Nigma Galaxy

Let’s begin the review with DPC WEU representatives. Nigma Galaxy will play as the favored side in this game. The club’s likelihood of success is pegged at about 1.20. It can’t be clearer – Nigma Galaxy are regarded as an unquestionable favorites.

As was already mentioned, the club only changed one position in the roster. However, given Nigma Galaxy’s own playstyle and the playstyle of a rookie to a European club family, this might be sufficient to completely alter the team’s game. The introduction of Ammar “ATF” Al-Assaf to the roster should revitalize the stale team and add fresh hues to Nigma gaming. “ATF” can become the team’s captain and number one with his aggressive playstyle, which may have been something he lacked as a hardliner at his previous club, OG. This raises the issue of how to acclimate the squad to the new player in the position 1, as well as to “ATF” in the carry position. He’ll actually make its debut in the position 1.

The Western European qualifier for The International 2022 was the final competition for Nigma Galaxy before the BetBoom Xmas Show and the changing of the lineup. The squad finished in the TOP-6, missing out on The International for the second time in a row. Nigma have never been summoned before to the BetBoom Xmas Show, and they were given a direct invitation to the event’s playoffs this year.

Nigma didn’t strictly adhere to the rules of the meta in patch 7.32; they instead played from their repertory. This didn’t, however, produce any particular successes. “Io” was the most frequently selected character (6 games, 66% victories).

The current form of the HellRaisers

The match analysis continues with the performance of the HellRaisers. They’ll carry the role of outsiders in this game. They have a lower probability for winning, according to whichever Dota 2 betting website you visited: 4.20 odds on average. The disparity between the teams’ strengths is apparent. The HellRaisers have undergone similar, and extremely significant, roster changes as Nigma. Better odds can’t be offered on the HellRaisers because of that.

Their game raised some issues, though. The HR management made a significant reorganization after the previous season. They’ve amassed a hybrid of youth and experience, but does it bear fruit? A typical Eastern European fable can be seen here: take a seasoned captain and build a roster around him. It somewhat functions in theory, but not really. Last season, Alexey “Solo” Berezin attempted to do the same in NaVi, and as a result, the roster was powerless in general. There had been prior attempts too. We don’t want to sound pessimistic, but this composition seems to be something that will last just briefly and has very little possibility of maintaining its current shape over time.

The HellRaisers opened their participation in the BetBoom Xmas Show in the group stage. They encountered sides like Monaspa, YNT, RISE, and Nemiga Gaming in Group A. The squad went to the playoffs from second place. The newest gameplay is already being played by the HellRaisers as part of the BetBoom Xmas Show. They played in various ways. “Enchantress” and “Tusk” were the two heroes that the HellRaisers chose most frequently (4 matches each, 75% wins each) thus far.

Head-to-head encounters

Prior to the reshuffles, the teams weren’t scheduled to compete against one another in official games. The first head-to-head matchup between the clubs will be exactly in the quarter-finals of the BetBoom Xmas Show.

Match analytics

Despite the fact that our prediction is pretty reasonable, the reality is twofold. First, there’s fact that Nigma Galaxy are inexperienced and it’s unclear how “ATF” will perform in the position 1 in a competitive game. On the other hand, the HellRaisers managed to lose all games in which they were no match for those teams on paper.

In any event, even with a conditional 2-0 for Nigma Galaxy, it will be entertaining to see the encounter. You shouldn’t set this predicition as a prefire, though. Since we’re confident that Nigma will be laying the foundation for a win longer than expected, we’ll give HR a ‘discount’ of one card. As a result, we predict the handicap on the HellRaisers of +1.5. Thunderpick is yet to release the odds for the match so check them out soon.

Results of the forecast

Successful forecast. Nigma Galaxy vs HellRaisers 0:2