Nigma Galaxy lineup to depart organization; replace vilga with zAAz

30-1-2024 21:38

tory will take over leadership duties in place of vilga.

Nigma Galaxy won four straight ESL Impact titles

Nigma Galaxy and their female roster that has been the dominant force in the scene since coming together in September 2021 will part ways on February 14. The soon-to-be orgless squad has also enacted their first roster change in almost two years by removing Ksenia "⁠vilga⁠" Kluenkova in favor of Zainab "⁠zAAz⁠" Turkie.

"From the outside, this change might come as a surprise for some people, but there is only so long you can go with the same roster," said coach Reinis "⁠hyskeee⁠" Grīnbergs in a comment to HLTV. "I could feel that the atmosphere was nowhere near where I wanted it to be, and it definitely affected our results during Impact season and especially outside of the female circuit."

A breath of fresh air was necessary to evolve, and I am sure this is the right move for both parties

Reinis "⁠hyskeee⁠" Grīnbergs

"A breath of fresh air was necessary to evolve, and I am sure this is the right move for both parties. That being said, tory will take over the captain and IGL role, and zAAz will join in as an active rifler. I would like to say special thanks to vilga, who sacrificed so much for the team, and for all the hard work she did to win so many trophies."

vilga spent over two years on the roster and led Nigma Galaxy to six LAN titles while averaging a 1.10 rating during her tenure. The 32-year-old's replacement zAAz most recently represented G2 Oya, with whom she placed 5-6th in two seasons of ESL Impact.

The decision comes as an immense surprise, given that the team solidified its position as the top-ranked women's team in 2023 after they triumphed in all three significant LAN tournaments, namely ESL Impact Katowice and the two ESL Impact League Finals.

The success earned Nigma Galaxy the title of the best women’s Counter-Strike team of the year at the 2023 HLTV Award Show, while their star AWPer Ana "⁠ANa⁠" Dumbravă claimed the award for best women’s player.

Nigma Galaxy and ANa scoop women’s awards

"I'm super happy and excited about this new chapter with this amazing talented team," zAAz said to HLTV. "I've been getting freedom in this team as a player and that's something I'm very happy about because that's the only way I can show my absolute best performance. I can't wait to create good memories with the girls and finally start winning some trophies."

Victoria "⁠tory⁠" Kazieva, who will take over in-game leadership duties, said she was excited to take over the role and try something different. "I will do everything to keep the number one title and start to compete against tier 2-3 male teams. Thanks to my teammates for [believing] in me [as] in-game leader."

The team is currently competing in the YaLLa Compass Spring 2024 Contenders, where they sit on a 0-1 record after a loss to Sprout, and is slated to appear at ESL Impact Season 5 after receiving an invite to the group stage.

The following roster will be without an organization as of February 14:

Ana "⁠ANa⁠" Dumbravă
Victoria "⁠tory⁠" Kazieva
Alexandra "⁠twenty3⁠" Timonina
Katarína "⁠Kat⁠" Vašková
Zainab "⁠zAAz⁠" Turkie

Reinis "⁠hyskeee⁠" Grīnbergs (coach)

wtf

2024-01-30 21:38

Big news! imo Zaaz is an upgrade. Time will tell, GLHF

3 replies

idk, vilga was their capitan, they might collapse as cloud9 did removing nafany

2024-01-30 21:53

1 reply

Meh, they probably realized she couldn't igl against similarly skilled mens teams. Based on the article, seems like they want to take their opportunity to have greater ambitions than the female circuit. Based on the couple times i watched them play, they have enough firepower to get 75-100 range.

2024-01-30 22:19

10 years ago maybe, even then vilga was one of the best fe players

2024-01-31 11:11

Interesting. Let's see if it will raise their overall level.

season 5 is gonna be crazy

2024-01-31 14:01

Why kick vilga ?

2024-01-30 21:39

End of an era

rip nigma not top 1 anymore

-1

What even

2024-01-30 21:40

Hopefully they get a new home :D Also Hopefully they get into more events, that will help them the most.

2024-01-30 21:41

RIP AN ERA

true

2024-01-31 10:02

very cool if you challenge yourselves this way, challenging the tier 3 boys more regularly. best of luck gals.

2024-01-30 21:42

zaaz huge upgrade but vilga is the aunt of cs

2024-01-30 21:44

6 replies

and zaaz is the grandma

2024-01-30 21:45

>>>>>>>>>> content

wdym, they both used to play in the best female teams together for the majority of their careers xd

2024-01-31 11:39

The difference is vilga ain't touched valulrant

2024-01-31 23:11

2 replies

haha, tru but zaaz was always better skill-wise than vilga, as far as I can remember back in the day

2024-01-31 23:12

Can't disagree on that one

2024-01-31 23:13

Now this is surprising

2024-01-30 21:46

Hope this works out for them.

2024-01-30 21:49

I aren't think so

TURKIEEE

2024-01-30 21:51

Pure marketing move, zAaz has more folowers ... to evolve they say, to evolve where ? Into what ?

Why?

2024-01-30 21:54

No Vilga no Female Major meme just like No fnx no Major inc

Are you serious ???

2024-01-30 21:56

Zaaz is good but maybe they ruined the team in this way.

replace goat with goat, gl

2024-01-30 21:58

idk, vilga will be missed for sure

2024-01-30 22:03

Makes sense because they've won everything in the female CS and wants to step up the game for the male CS. vilga probably wanted to continue dominating female CS and Nigma didn't want to change so they broke up. That's the only thing I can think of, or they felt vilga wasn't enough for male competition

2024-01-30 22:04

5 replies

"step up the game for the male CS" Yeah, that ain't happening bud. They get way more money dominating the female league than they would trying to compete against t3-4 male teams.

2024-01-30 22:10

4 replies

Like I said mate, they've won it all, at some point it stops being about the money but about trying to be more exciting, to challenge yourself to new heights. And I respect that from them, they'll hear people under value them and they'll be under scrutiny but they want to do that because the female league has become too bland

2024-01-30 22:15

Or they can both dominate female tournaments, and try to compete against t4 male teams???

2024-01-30 22:55

Hmm, have you ever done anything in your life that didn't get you money?

2024-01-30 23:35

Never

2024-01-31 09:53

bad move, vilga was the glue.

2024-01-30 22:06

Vilga lowkey female CSGO goat.

gl in the future <3

2024-01-30 22:22

vilga robbed

2024-01-30 22:36

Fell like they need a t1 coach to mentor them. Nevertheless, competing against t3,2 will require far more effort, unfourtanely LAN events, are non existent at that tier. G2 maybe sign them, have them bootcamp with Niko, Lol. Ps love they re logo, but they re gone.

2024-01-30 22:39

Replaced a 32yo with another 32yo lol

2024-01-30 22:40

terrible

2024-01-30 22:41

why bother change something that is working? like vilga is good igl, no need to switch something up...

2024-01-30 22:48

they wanted to make changes in order to compete with low tier men cs because the way they are right now they have no chance vs 5 men FPL mix. They did it already too many times in ESL Impact, now they go for the competing men and apperantely thats the change they feel like doing to do that.

2024-01-31 01:14

Time will tell if it works or if it backfires horribly. If they don't win next Impact season, we'll know why... Vilga wasn't even their worst fragger either, so a surprise for sure

2024-01-31 18:08

They have to switch to English now btw

they r always was on eng

2024-01-30 22:58

No way

2024-01-31 00:16

I don't think that Kat and Ana speak Russian

2024-01-31 09:42

Clueless

2024-01-31 10:00

ok vilga just build next top1 team so

2024-01-30 22:51

downgrade, zAAz washed

2024-01-30 23:07

Better era than astralis in my books

2024-01-30 23:14

alright lol

2024-01-30 23:15

kicking the igl, risky move

delusional they will not even keep up in esea main no chance against tier3 teams

2024-01-30 23:20

Hope vilga finds a new home soon, and it's interesting to see zAAz in such a roster

2024-01-30 23:30

replace 32 year old IGL with 32 year old non-IGL. idk, feels like a mistake to me.

2024-01-30 23:42

she isn't replacing the IGL technically, but Tory

2024-01-31 09:43

Yeah that’s my point. Replace a 32 year old igl with a 32 year old star player, it seems like a mistake

2024-01-31 12:40

amazing, now navi javelins will win (copium) imagine winning every single tournament for 2 years straight and saying "we need to evolve" xD

2024-01-31 00:02

well yea, they start looking into winning against men tand they were no way near that, they feel like this change will bring them closer to it.

2024-01-31 01:15

+juliano when

2024-01-31 00:04

VP should sign them right away

2024-01-31 00:14

Damn that's sad

2024-01-31 00:35

they just won biggest female tournament and parting ways with org what???

2024-01-31 00:43

org probably wants to pay them less or not pay them at all.

2024-01-31 00:46

up and coming talent zaaz was long time ago

2024-01-31 00:56

Gambit 2017 vibes. Sad

2024-01-31 01:06

NGX CS2 > NGX DOTA2

2024-01-31 01:07

downgrade vilga is simply the goat of the female scene

2024-01-31 02:43

wtf why they do vilga like this she was goated

2024-01-31 04:01

Sprout caused this

2024-01-31 05:48

32 year old player who moved to val because she never had the drive to improve is surely a great way to reinvigorate the number 1 female cs team of all time....

2024-01-31 06:38

Downgrade on vilga. Hope they continue doing well. Tory <3

2024-01-31 08:36

whichever team gets vilga will instantly improve also weird to see zAAz instead of juliano

2024-01-31 08:40

Massive downgrade, it's never easy to replace an IGL even if it's inside from the team also, didn't zAAz announce her retirement on twitter like a year ago? lmao

2024-01-31 09:44

zaaz and juliano returned to csgo playing for g2 meanwhile they didn't qualify for ESL impact finals so they didn't renew their contracts zaaz still has good fire power, but we don't know if tory will be able to lead as vilga did. If juliano and kyossa sign (they played together last cash cup) for BIG, I think the top5 teams of the world will be between NaVi, ex- Nigma, BIG and Vilga's next team, with no clear top 1 between them. and these are all EU so one of them will be left out of the finals ASTRA's new team will probably be top 6 EU.

2024-01-31 12:15