We don’t cover ESL Impact as much as we’d like, but we bet you could guess the favourites for the 4th ESL Impact Finals in Valencia this weekend: Nigma Galaxy.

After winning six ESL Impact LAN events - the only six ever - would this be the one where they finally took an L?

To everyone’s surprise, that actually seemed like a reasonable question on Friday.

During group play the dominant squad finally suffered their first LAN match loss ever in a BO1 against Fluxo Demons on Vertigo. Yep, you read that right. First LAN loss, ever.

But the shocking start didn’t seem to faze the champs. Nigma went on to best Asia’s HSG fe (spearheaded by Olga) twice in the group stage, and defeat 9 Pandas Fearless before making it to a Grand Final appearance against NAVI Javelins.

Despite having faced Nigma in two other finals this year (Katowice and ESL Impact S3), NAVI couldn’t put up much of a fight. First they lost Inferno 6-13 and then they got wiped out on Nuke 0-13, leaving Nigma Galaxy to raise up their 4th ESL Impact trophy in a row.

To some surprise, Kat was awarded the MVP of the tournament - a recognition expectedly reserved for AWP star ANa - but a 105 ADR in the finals and 1.65 rating made the difference here, with the Slovakian achieving her first ever MVP.

ESL Impact returns with online qualifiers in February as well as a fresh format from ESL that may (or may not) give Nigma more competition in 2024.

Final standings:

1st 🇷🇺 Nigma Galaxy - $50.000
2nd 🇵🇱 NAVI Javelins - $25.000
3-4th 🇧🇷 Fluxo Demons - $13.000
3-4th 🇷🇺 9 Pandas Fearless - $13.000
5-6th 🇧🇷 FURIA fe - $7.000
5-6th 🏳️ HSG fe - $7.000