Nigma built their draft around a flex Necrophos and a Puck tempo core — and Falcons' answer was the Enchantress. Enchant is a soft counter to Necrophos on two fronts: she plays a fast, high-tempo lane that denies Necrophos the early momentum it needs, and her second skill dispels Ghost Shroud. Paired with a Lone Druid / Tiny tower-damage plan, the draft reads 50/50 on paper — the game comes down to tempo.
Nigma opens on the Necrophos
Nigma Galaxy are on the first-pick side. The bans are pretty standard for this meta, and they open with the Necrophos — it could be a carry or the mid, because I doubt Davai played the Necro offlane.
Falcons answered with the flex hero Snapfire, then went to work on the ban phase. Clockwerk was still in the pool and they didn't want to face it in the Doom for Ammar, so it went. They also banned Viper, because Lorenof plays a lot of Viper.
The pick: Enchantress
Falcons answered the Necrophos with the Enchantress, and it's a great pick on two levels.
Gameplay-wise the Enchantress plays a really high, fast tempo and owns the lane — and the Necrophos requires a bit of early momentum. On top of that, her second skill counters Ghost Shroud: Enchant dispels it.
That's a soft counter to the hero Nigma built around.
Nigma's response — flex supports and a Puck
Nigma still want to flex the Necrophos, so they pick two support heroes that can go either lane, off or safe. The Shadow Demon is a really good pick here — it purges against this hero, and against his escape act too.
Then Nigma close the draft with the Puck, the counter to these heroes, mostly a mid at this point. (Even though Malr1ne has played Centaur Warrunner mid — I saw that too, pretty wild — that hasn't shown up at this bracket.)
At this point the draft looks pretty 50/50. It comes down to tempo.
Falcons' finish — Lone Druid into Tiny
The late bans are Drow Ranger, then Nature's Prophet and Windranger, then Templar Assassin. Looking at the lineup, Falcons want tower damage plus an independent, high-damage hero they can play around, so they take the Lone Druid.
That makes the Tiny a very good option for Falcons: low-cooldown spells even in the late game, so he can deal with the bear even after the Aghanim's Scepter — and he's good into the Puck.
How each side executes
Falcons' plan Slow down the Lone Druid timing in the early game. The Enchantress is the great answer here — she's going to enable all the other lanes.
Lone Druid's plan Destroy as many tier-1 towers as possible to snowball the team from the early game, and get the space to farm the Aghanim's on the 15–20 minute mark, which is the ideal window.
The check: the draft is 50/50, so watch the tempo. If Enchantress owns her lane and Falcons deny the Lone Druid its 15–20 minute Aghanim's timing, their soft-counter plan worked. If the Bear is farming Aghs on schedule off early tier-1 towers, Nigma won the tempo battle instead. I'll break down how the match actually played out in the next video.