MOUZ defeated Falcons in the BLAST Open Porto group stage upper-bracket final to advance directly to the semifinals. After the match, in-game leader xertioN spoke with Dust2 Brasil about the victory, expectations for the playoffs, and called this the most promising roster in MOUZ history.
The opening map Nuke was MOUZ's pick, but they never found their rhythm and lost 6-13. xertioN took responsibility, admitting his T-side calling plan wasn't good enough.
xertioN: To be honest, Nuke is one of our favorite maps, but at the same time it's not easy to play on the T side. We had previously won about seven in a row, but every game was very close and we could have lost any of them. I think picking Nuke today was fine, but maybe my game plan wasn't the best, I take some of the responsibility for the T side. And mentally we were completely not in it, honestly, if we had played a different map, the result probably wouldn't have been any different.
After losing Nuke, MOUZ quickly regrouped to take Ancient 13-6, then dominated Inferno 13-3 to complete the comeback from a map down. xertioN revealed how the team responded after the loss on Nuke.
xertioN: We told ourselves that we actually had a chance, we were just playing hesitantly at times. Of course there's pressure against a strong team like Falcons. We just said that on Ancient we had nothing to lose and had to play with confidence. Coach sycrone said some great words to motivate the guys. Once we got into Ancient, we just played our own game, stuck to the pre-match plan, and it worked really well.
MOUZ go straight to the semifinals, meaning they don't have to play the quarterfinals. xertioN believes this has both pros and cons.
xertioN: Starting directly in the semifinals is definitely different. The benefit is that you can skip a potentially very tough match, and you also have more time to train, which is very helpful for us. But on the other hand, playing the quarterfinals also lets young players gain stage experience. However, they'll have to get used to starting directly in the semifinals.
Only 8 of the 16 teams in the group stage can advance to the playoffs in Porto. xertioN believes MOUZ is one of the favorites to win the title.
xertioN: We didn't set too many expectations for ourselves. We are of course one of the title contenders now, I think we are one of the strongest teams in the world, at least in terms of consistency. Many top teams have slumped in the middle of this year. We want to win the championship, there's nothing to be embarrassed about saying that, while also improving from match to match.
MOUZ brought in two young players, PR and xelex, this year. xertioN believes this is the most promising roster in MOUZ history, but more experience is needed to fulfill that potential.
xertioN: This current lineup is indeed the one with the most potential in MOUZ's history, though perhaps we're not fully ready yet. Major tournaments are completely different from regular matches, and we don't know how this lineup will perform on the big stage — maybe it will go very smoothly. But before that, we will continue to train hard, aiming to win more titles and build more confidence along the way.