MOUZ were eliminated in the StarSeries Fall lower bracket by FURIA in their third series in Barcelona — all of them three-mappers — after an opening loss to NRG and a lower-bracket victory against Natus Vincere.
All three teams picked Cache successfully against MOUZ, a map that Dorian "xertioN" Berman says he is still learning how to call on as he continues his development as an in-game leader. "We're still pretty confident about the philosophy of it," he says, "but we have yet to execute it properly in the game."
Now, it's back to the drawing board for MOUZ. "We will have some learnings from the IGL and the coach side," the caller adds, "we will do better next time."
It's day three in StarSeries Fall. I'm here with xertioN from MOUZ. Rough loss against FURIA in the lower bracket. Now you are eliminated. Tell me a little bit about your run here. You started with the loss to NRG, kind of bounced back against NAVI, who are also struggling a little bit, and then you had a three-mapper here with FURIA. What do you make of these few days here?
Yeah, as you said, we started off really weak and slow against NRG. Definitely a loss that we didn't anticipate. We have been putting in so much work, and then we kind of fell flat on that game. We hoped during this grind in the lower bracket we will get back to our form, but neither yesterday against NAVI nor today against FURIA did I feel like we even played close to our B level.
So super disappointed in how we played, but at the same time maybe it's a good slap in the face to have at the moment that we have a bit of an earlier exit, and we also have a bit more time to practice now.
You played a lot of Cache here, and you've been struggling a little bit with it. Can you tell me what's going on with the map and what you are struggling with there?
Well, I think it's a map that requires a lot of fine attention to detail from players individually, especially on T sides, I would say. It's a map where we need all of the players to activate themselves in some way, and control the defaults in their areas. And I think we have yet to kind of accomplish that.
At the same time, of course, I'm a new IGL, and I've also never played Cache, so definitely there is also some experience side to it. I think our coach is doing a great job at trying to teach us how this map is played. I think we're still pretty confident about the philosophy of it, but we have yet to execute it properly in the game.
Yeah, and tell me a little bit about the new guys and how they're being brought in, because I was talking to torzsi and he was talking to me about how you were fine-tuning with PR, for example, when he has to kind of be a little bit more of a part of the pack and help entry, or when you go and entry. And how are you kind of figuring out all these role differences and these changes in the structure of the team?
Yeah, definitely. I think it's always a bit hard to find a balance between giving too much input to a young guy. You also want him to feel confident and comfortable. At the same time, there are also some steps that xelex and PR have to take to get to the level of the more veterans that we have on the team. But still, I think everyone is doing a really good job. I'm super proud of the work we have been putting in.
Unfortunately, maybe in this tournament it looked a bit flat from everyone, but I can take a lot of responsibility, and I think we could have done a bit of a better job preparing ourselves for this tournament. And yeah, overall I think that we need a few days of rest. It's been a lot of tournaments lately, and with two new guys, also the pressure gets higher when we start winning or competing for titles. And yeah, I think that we just have to find the balance of how that works in our team.
And the match against FURIA today, they're a team that are a little bit behind you in the VRS, kind of chasing the top teams. How is it to lose that kind of match against a team like that?
Yeah, it feels bad, but not because we lost to FURIA. I think they have a great team. Maybe at the moment they are not the most consistent, but when they are on, I think they play really well, and today, at some points, they definitely had the game under control. I think that, to be honest, we didn't play our A game, as I said, and we never showed up in this tournament really as the MOUZ that we know we can be. And not too much to overthink, just that mentally we were not present in StarSeries Barcelona.
Why do you think that was?
I think it was maybe due to the lack of practice. I think that it kind of got us out of the rhythm. And we will have to review if maybe we had a bit too much off days going into the tournament, or maybe it was just right because we also had basically four weeks on the road before it. So it's a bit hard to manage, but we will have some learnings from the IGL and the coach side. And yeah, we will do better next time.
And so how is it going to be moving forward? How are you going to kind of manage the schedule? Do you know what's coming next for you? Are you going to take a little bit of time off now? Are you going to kind of reset? Are you going to spend it practicing? What's next for you guys?
We don't know at the moment, but we will definitely do our best to set ourselves up for the best chance at the next tournament.
NRG
Nick 'nitr0' Cannella
Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek
Håkon 'hallzerk' Fjærli
Michael 'Grim' Wince
Jeorge 'Jeorge' Endicott
Damian 'daps' Steele
Dorian 'xertioN' BermanPast 3 months
FURIA
Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo
Yuri 'yuurih' Santos
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato
Danil 'molodoy' Golubenko
Sid 'sidde' Macedo
Natus Vincere
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Mihai 'iM' Ivan
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy
Ihor 'w0nderful' Zhdanov
Drin 'makazze' Shaqiri
Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy
MOUZ
Ádám 'torzsi' Torzsás
Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi
Dorian 'xertioN' Berman
Oldřich 'PR' Nový
Adrian 'xelex' Vincze
Dennis 'sycrone' Nielsen