The ex-Team Liquid lineup, which finished second at TI9, has announced its official return under the Nigma banner.

KuroKy's back

The fact that the TI7 winning core opted to on from Liquid after finishing in second place at TI9 off the back of a flawless lower bracket run was one of the bigger surprises of the offseason. It's taken perhaps a bit longer than many would have anticipated for these players to establish their own org, skipping the first Major cycle of the 2019/20 DPC season, but their string of teasers suggested they'd be ready to go in time for the Leipzig qualifiers. Now they are ready to go.

Though the roster remains unchanged (Miracle-, w33, MinD_ContRoL, GH, KuroKy), it seems there's still no confirmation whether Roman ‘rmN’ Paley, their coach from the Liquid days, also remains a part of their plans.

That said, we need to address the elephant in the room. The name has quite a few unfortunate implications, which were quickly picked up on by the community. Officially, the name refers to "star" in Arabic (and could conceivably relate to Enigma), but the similarities to made-up disease "ligma" and the many ways it could be spun into racist slurs (especially when combined with GH's handle) have many up in arms.

Branding issues notwithstanding, it's exciting to have this lineup back in action, just in time for the DreamLeague Season 13 qualifiers.

Photo credit: Nigma / twitter.com/nigmagg