vilga on winning ESL Impact Katowice: "This victory is the best out of all of them"

Russian rifler Ksenia "⁠vilga⁠" Kluenkova took some time out with HLTV after winning a fourth ESL Impact LAN trophy in a row.

Nigma Galaxy have been the queens of the Impact circuit ever since it began last year, taking all of the LAN trophies on offer and not losing a single game. It was no different in Katowice as they marched to victory once again.

There were some signs that the tide is slowly shifting, as they were run very close by FURIA fe in the semi-finals and by NAVI Javelins in the final, but they displayed admirable grit and determination to ensure they remain undefeated in the Impact circuit. Make no bones about it, Nigma Galaxy are the team to beat.

After securing the Katowice trophy by defeating NAVI Javelins vilga sat down with Zvonimir "⁠Professeur⁠" Burazin to chat about her team's latest event win, the state of the female scene as a whole, and Nigma Galaxy's plans for the future.

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Nigma Galaxy secure fourth ESL Impact trophy

You just won the tournament, I'll start there. You won everything last year and did the same here, but it was in a bit more difficult fashion. How does it feel?

This victory is the best out of all of them. Before coming here we had a three week bootcamp and definitely we will not do this again, because we are genuinely exhausted mentally and physically. You could feel it in the game, you could see it on the faces how people were tired and didn't want to communicate properly, so winning this tournament actually shows we have a lot of strength. There's still potential in us that we haven't discovered yet, but we are on our way to doing it.

Aside from that, did you feel that the other teams improved and stepped up? We saw NAVI Javelins pushing you very hard, and FURIA as well.

Of course. Everyone is really prepared for us, you can see the way they anti-strat us, the way they play against us, they know that we are a pretty aggressive team. When we play against girls and do something aggressive nowadays everyone is just holding and waiting for us, so everyone has prepared for us, but we always have something new to show and surprise.

Who do you think is going to be your rival this year? Obviously FURIA was that last year, you played three finals, NAVI now reached the final this year, who do you think will be the No. 1 competition for you?

To be honest it's hard to name one team. NAVI has always given us big competition within Europe, and FURIA outside of Europe, but I also think that CLG Red has been improving, Asian teams have been improving, other Brazilians, we also see juliano and zAAz coming back from Valorant and creating a new team. I am very happy that in 2023 we will see more teams and it is just going to be more interesting to play and compete.

You mention zAAz and juliano and I wanted to ask about that because obviously you played with them for a bit, mostly against them, and they were the rulers of the women's scene for a long time. What are your feelings about them coming back and how do you think it will develop?

When they switched to Valorant I got really sad, because it is my goal to win against them, to basically win against any female team. When they switched I couldn't win against them, but now I can (laughs). I am glad because the more female players and teams there are, the better the scene is.

What are your plans and goals for the rest of the year?

Right now we are going to have a little break, then in the middle of March we have a tournament, Girl Gamer Festival in Bahrain. After this we are going to prepare for the first season of ESL Impact with the LAN finals in Dallas, and of course our biggest goal out of all of them is to qualify for Advanced, so we are going to be focusing on all of that.

Is there anything you want to add at the end of this interview?
I am very proud of my team and my teammates, I am very happy with what we have achieved. I am grateful to all the fans, our organisation, our families who support us, and I just want you to know that this year is going to be the best year of Nigma Galaxy so far.