While the men’s Counter-Strike is wide open, with the top of the rankings and every single trophy up for grabs, the same can’t be said of the women’s game.
The climax of the ESL Impact League saw a repeat of the final from last time around, with the familiarly flamboyant FURIA female team coming up against the ultra-dominant Nigma Galaxy, with a similar result.
Nigma Galaxy have been the queens of the scene for little while now; not exactly hindered by the fact that the previous dominant force moved to VALORANT under G2’s moniker.
They underlined their performances with a threepeat Impact trophy, spanking FURIA 16-5 in map one and overcoming them in a close-fought second map, with ANa - who was pointed out to us a while ago by guest writer NtroP - as the highest rated player by some distance.
Turns out we picked someone who knew what they were talking about. For once.
Nigma didn’t drop a map all tournament, in case you had any doubts about how good they are. FURIA are solid, but nobody can put a scratch on Nigma Galaxy.
The big shock of the tournament was HSG fe, who came in as complete unknowns and picked off both CLG Red and EG Gold in best of threes, just to ensure NA CS was dead in both scenes.
While the Asian mix ended up falling to FURIA, it’s still a fun little side-story, and perhaps a passing of the torch moment. For years, CLG Red were a huge force in women’s Counter-Strike, but this shock result might signal a change of the tides.
At least, for the top 5. There’s no changing of the tides at the top, as Nigma continued their reign of terror.
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