loWel: "Since ropz joined, we have more team play"

For some time it was a bit unclear about how mouz was going to be restructured after NiKo left. For instance oskar was supposed to replace chrisJ, then ropz came in to replace Spiidi. You’ve had two offline tournaments since then and you’ve done well going through the groups each time. What have been the keys to this success and getting back on track so quickly?

I would say our coach helped us a lot, because he’s a really good coach, he helps us a lot with tactics, team play and I think that was one of the key. Sergey [E/N: lmbt] is helping really hard.

Can you speak a little bit about the adjustments you had to make for the team since NiKo’s departure?

So chrisJ is the IGL now, because NiKo was before that. But the only thing we changed was chrisJ’s role. Everything else is the same, the other roles are the same.

Would you say that the departure of NiKo has been actually beneficial for the team in terms of getting everybody more responsible in terms of their individual performance. For example when kennyS left Titan back in 2015, some players said it was good for the team. Is that the same case here for mouz?

I would say yes. I mean for me NiKo is the best player in the world. He’s a really good friend, and he’s the best. But since ropz joined, I think we have more team play. With each other we share more responsibilities as players. So I think it’s better now.

One of the main talking points for mouz recently has been ropz. His play at DreamHack Tours was already good and he’s doing even better at EPL. Can you speak a little bit about how do you guys work with him? Given that he’s such a young player, do you take a specialized approach in terms of developing his career?

Nothing special. He just needs experience. He’s been playing mostly online, not on LAN. But on LAN he’s also playing really good. I told him that he just needs to get more experience in this kind of tournaments, take it easy, etc. So that’s it.

More general questions about the tournament. The format for the groups has been criticized, so I wanted to ask your opinion on that. How do you feel about the format and do you think there’s a better way to approach it with twelve teams?

I don’t know if there’s a better way to do it but it was really about luck because we won four games against NRG, Na’Vi, OpTic and one more I don’t remember now [E/N: Team Liquid actually]. And we have to play against SK in the quarterfinals. It’s like “what the fuck?” you know. It’s about luck. We also lost one against North and in my opinion it was also down to luck in the last round with oskar, where he had one hp. But yeah we won four games and we had to play against SK in the quarterfinals so it really felt that was about luck.

So you don’t like this format?

I mean I like it but… [laughs] sometimes you know. But in this case no because I had to play SK in the quarterfinals.

Looking forward what are some of the biggest weaknesses or issues that you think mousesports need to address as a team?

I think the communication. Especially in our CT sides, we need to work on it because, we could see it against SK, we didn’t win a single round as CT, or only one. So yeah we have to improve our communication on our CT sides.

What would you say is your biggest goal for your team in the rest of the year?

The Major, of course.

Lastly, can you name a big up and coming young player in the EU region right now?

I don’t know… Yeah I don’t know about anyone right now.


Interviewer: XXTN
Editor: Ragnarork
Photo credit: ESL
CSS: FO-nTTaX