ESL One Raleigh 2025: Nigma Galaxy are off to a perfect start in the Group Stage

Three teams with stand-ins have been performing excellently to start the tournament’s Group Stage.

ESL One Raleigh 2025, the biggest Dota 2 LAN tournament of the year so far, kicked off on Tuesday (8 April) with a three-day round-robin Group Stage. To everyone’s surprise, Nigma Galaxy are leading the entire pack with a perfect 4-0 record in the opening day of the tournament. Meanwhile, Team Falcons, Team Liquid, and PARIVISION also started strong with 3-1 records apiece.

The 12 participating teams in ESL One Raleigh 2025 were split into two groups of six teams each for the Group Stage, with each group going through a single round-robin of best-of-two matches to determine which teams will advance to the Playoffs. The Top 2 teams from each group will earn upper bracket berths in the Playoffs, while the third and fourth-placed teams will have to start in the lower bracket. Meanwhile, the bottom two teams of each group will be eliminated early.

Here’s how all the action in Day 1 of ESL One Raleigh 2025 went down:

Nigma Galaxy top Group A with perfect 4-0 record

By far the most eye-catching performance in day one of ESL One Raleigh 2025 was Nigma Galaxy scoring 2-0 sweeps over Shopify Rebellion and Talon Esports, ending the day atop the standings of Group A with a 4-0 record. Nigma Galaxy have been on an upward trend ever since Daniel Chan “Ghost” Kok Hong became the team’s de-facto mid laner in mid-February as Amer “Miracle-” Al-Barkawi continues to be sidelined due to apparent health issues.

It is worth noting that Nigma Galaxy’s perfect start came at the expense of the two weakest teams in Group A, though that shouldn’t take away from their strong showing so far. If the team can maintain their good form against the other powerhouses in their group, then an upper bracket start – and a potential deep Playoff run – may very well be in the cards for Nigma Galaxy. Whatever comes next, Nigma Galaxy are at least looking like they’re locked in for a Playoff spot, which is something the team’s hordes of fans are surely very excited for.

Sitting behind Nigma Galaxy are reigning The International champions Liquid and PARIVISION, each with a 3-1 record after scoring 2-0 sweeps over Talon and Shopify Rebellion, respectively, and tying 1-1 with Team Spirit. Should Nigma Galaxy falter in the coming days, we can expect Liquid and PARIVISION to be the ones heading for the upper bracket for Group A instead. Liquid’s strong start is notably impressive given they are playing with Jonathan Bryle “Bryle” Santos De Guia as a stand-in, still fresh off a year in hiatus, after Michał “Nisha” Jankowski encountered visa issues.

Occupying the bottom three spots in Group A are Spirit, Talon, and Shopify Rebellion, with Spirit splitting their two matches for the day while both Talon and Shopify Rebellion went winless. Both Talon and Shopify Rebellion are facing uphill battles just to make the Playoffs, which should give Spirit enough breathing room to recover from this middling start and advance to the next round. While a lower bracket start will be far from ideal for Spirit, they are no strangers to making a lower bracket run in big stages.

Team Falcons with Quinn lead Group B with 3-1 record

Falcons are yet another squad in ESL One Raleigh that have performed excellently even with a stand-in. With Stanislav “Malr1ne” Potorak out due to visa issues, Gaimin Gladiators‘ Quinn “Quinn” Callahan filled in his shoes quite nicely and helped Falcons sweep BetBoom Team and draw with Tundra Esports to finish the opening day of the tournament atop the standings of Group B with a 3-1 record. With two of their strongest opponents in the group on paper already out of the way, Falcons are very likely to hold onto pole position for Group B and secure an upper bracket berth in the Playoffs.

Below Falcons, four teams finished day one with a 2-2 record, and are locked in a four-way tie for the three remaining spots in the Playoffs: Tundra, Team Tidebound, HEROIC, and AVULUS. As the most dominant team for the first three months of the year, Tundra should grab the second seed of the group and start in the upper bracket. That then leaves three teams vying over two lower bracket spots, with Tidebound and HEROIC most likely to advance. With not enough data on this tournament to go off of right now, we’re giving Tidebound and HEROIC the edge simply due to roster continuity. AVULUS recently parted ways with two players and will have to adjust to a new roster on the fly.

Finally, BetBoom sit at the bottom of Group B with a 1-3 record. It’s a surprisingly disappointing start for them, considering they had just won FISSURE Universe: Episode 4 a week ago. With that said, BetBoom recovering to grab one of the two lower bracket spots is not out of the question, though it’s far from a given.

Here’s how all the matches in day one of the ESL One Raleigh 2025 Group Stage went down:

Group A

• PARIVISION 1-1 Team Spirit
• Nigma Galaxy 2-0 Shopify Rebellion
• Team Liquid 2-0 Talon Esports
• Team Liquid 1-1 Team Spirit
• PARIVISION 2-0 Shopify Rebellion
• Nigma Galaxy 2-0 Talon Esports

Group B

• Tundra Esports 1-1 Team Falcons
• BetBoom Team 1-1 Team Tidebound
• HEROIC 1-1 AVULUS
• Team Falcons 2-0 BetBoom Team
• Team Tidebound 1-1 HEROIC
• Tundra Esports 1-1 AVULUS

Here are the standings after day one the ESL One Raleigh 2025 Group Stage:

Group A

1. Nigma Galaxy: 4-0
2. Team Liquid: 3-1
3. PARIVISION: 3-1
4. Team Spirit: 2-2
5. Shopify Rebellion: 0-4
6. Talon Esports: 0-4

Group B

1. Team Falcons: 3-1
2. AVULUS: 2-2
3. HEROIC: 2-2
4. Team Tidebound: 2-2
5. Tundra Esports: 2-2
6. BetBoom Team: 1-3

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ESL One Raleigh 2025 will take place from 7 to 13 April in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is the first ESL One event to be hosted in the United States since ESL One New York in 2015. The final three days of the tournament will be played in front of a live crowd in the Raleigh Convention Center. The champions of ESL One Raleigh 2025 will claim the grand prize of US$250,000 out of the tournament’s US$1 million prize pool alongside a hefty haul of ESL Pro Tour points that will go towards earning a direct invite for this year’s Dota 2 Riyadh Masters in the Esports World Cup 2025.

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