After being knocked down by Heroic in the second round of the IEM Cologne play-in stage, MOUZ had their opportunity for revenge against Heroic in the main stage, and they didn’t waste their golden opportunity. MOUZ managed to up a surprise 2-0 victory over a Heroic who recently made roster changes, to eliminate them from the event. The European team won Vertigo 16-13 and Nuke 16-10, which means they move on to face the loser of the Vitality vs Movistar Riders series.
While we have to give credit to MOUZ, the Danish squad looked incredibly shaky during the series, particularly their offense, which was what ultimately led to their demise. It was a poor start to life with Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard on the roster, and they have a lot of work to do in the upcoming off-season if they want to have a chance at looking good in their next event.
On the side of MOUZ, it was Jon “JDC” de Castro and Ádám “torzsi” Torzsás who pulled off excellent performances on Vertigo and Nuke respectively that provided much of the heavy lifting, but they were also far more potent in general on their offensive halves.
The first map was Vertigo, a MOUZ pick, though they weren’t looking that comfortable during the first half of the encounter. Heroic picked up 12 of the first 15 rounds on CT-side, but as mentioned before, their offense was their biggest issue. In the second half, MOUZ made a huge comeback winning the first 6 rounds in a row. Heroic tried their best to turn things around and won the 22th round, but they couldn’t go any further than that. By winning the last 7 rounds consecutively, MOUZ finished the first map with a 16-13 score, crushing all of Heroic’s hopes.
It was only a mistake by Aurimas “Bymas” Pipiras disconnect early doors that allowed Heroic to pick up three rounds in a row, but other than that, MOUZ had an almost-perfect defense on Nuke as JDC and torzsi were in excellent form. Regardless they were still able to take a solid 10-5 lead into the second period, and this proved too much of a deficit for Heroic to recover; Christopher “dexter” Nong and the rest of MOUZ eventually closed the map out 16-10.
These types of performances from JDC and torzsi are exactly what MOUZ will need to qualify for the playoffs, where only the very best teams will participate. It will be a difficult task because they need to win 2 best-of-3 series to earn their spot and avoid elimination. The European squad already secured $16,000 USD, but that won’t be enough for them as we have to remember that the prize for 1st place is a whopping $400,000 USD bag.
The event continues tomorrow and we’ll get to see very exciting matches between the likes of FaZe Clan, Team Spirit, Cloud9, Astralis, and more, so make sure to not miss any of it!
