MOUZ had an unfortunate exit from ESL One Birmingham, making it to the Lower Bracket after a challenging group stage, only to get hit by the 7.41 update fallout and get eliminated by tournament third-place Xtreme Gaming.
Following their elimination, Jaxon.gg talked with Miroslav “BOOM” Bičan to get his perspective on MOUZ’ untimely exit, the patch, and how this stack, that’s eerily similar to a 2024 Team Secret roster works well.
We’re talking to you one day after elimination. Your exit from the tournament came after a patch dropping right at the end of the group stage, then you have one set of games and then you have playoffs with Xtreme. Apart from the patch, do you feel there was anything that you guys could have changed to make that final push?
Miroslav “BOOM” Bičan: “I mean, I think we all felt very well prepared. We only had one day to adapt and we’re probably not the fastest team to adapt and try playing new heroes, let’s say, and stuff.
I’m not sure what more we could have done. We worked really hard on that day.
It didn’t work out. They were a bit more ready. I mean, we had our chances in the games. The games were kind of close. But they were just a bit better.”
Last year, Mouz were emerging as one of the top teams in the scene. You had the big win at PGL last year, Season 6. Since then, a lot of teams have kind of caught up to the level you were at then. What do you think Mouz can do to get back to that level?
BOOM: “I think we have to work on our preparation for tournaments like we kind of changed some stuff in our preparation for this one so we actually were playing kind of pretty well for the most part yeah so I think we just keep it up and keep you know.
We’re just working hard because we maybe got a bit complacent after we had some really good results last year. We’re kind of just out of shape individually for a while, this start of this year and until now. Now we’re in good shape I would say and the result was a bit better, but it’s just the consistency. We need to consistently be preparing well for this tournament.”
So one thing I’ve noticed with this current Mouz roster is it’s very similar to a Team Secret roster from a few years back, but, obviously, you’ve got Seleri rather than Puppey now. Is Seleri the new Puppy? And I suppose has that dynamic shifted despite being kind of a similar group of cores of the team?
BOOM: “Well, I think the dynamic is completely different from Team Secret, because in Team Secret it’s like, well, Puppey is the captain obviously and he’s like the boss. What he says you know goes. Yeah, this team but like Seleri, you can call him our captain right? He’s our captain kinda, but we’re all the same. There’s no boss so everyone everyone’s word holds the same weight.
And in Team Secret it was not like that. Sometimes when you said your opinion, it was just shut down or something. But in this team people just listen and try to understand you and so it’s a nicer environment to work in.”
Image Credit: ESL FACEIT Group
Talking a bit more about the patch, how much do you think the 7.41 patch affected your performance on those final games? Or was it just something that you just had to roll with?
BOOM: “I don’t think it affected our performance that much, it’s all about the heroes. Sometimes we had some heroes that we were very comfortable with on the last patch, and some heroes get nerfed, and some heroes that we don’t play as much, they got buffed. Maybe the opponents are better at them, or we didn’t adjust as fast.
I don’t know, it’s just about luck. A bit of randomness.”
So we had not one but two patches (7.41 & 7.41a) during the event now, which is kind of crazy. Is a mid-tournament patch is something you like, do like that chaos?
BOOM: “Well, it’s happened to me before at another ESL event, Kuala Lumpur, with the Team Secret. Two or three years ago? Something like that.
It was exactly the same. Group stage happened, we went to the lower bracket and before the lower bracket, the match, the patch dropped. And we got eliminated the next day. It was the same this time. I mean, I hate it, you know?
Honestly, but nothing we can do. Valve just keeps doing it and they seem to like it. I mean, it makes it fun for viewers, I guess. But for the players, it’s a bit hard.”
I know it’s quite early in the patch, but from my of low-elo perspective, it seems like quite an offlane-focused patch. The early waves speed was changed, buffs to a lot of offlane heroes, some kind of small changes around that which seem to help offlane. Do you agree or do you think there’s another lane that’s benefiting more from the updates?
BOOM: “No, I agree for sure. I mean, in my opinion, the last pitch was very safe lane oriented. Like the waves were meeting at the like in front of the tower basically. And so most offlanes were losing. When you’re watching, it’s like 75-80 % of offlaners are losing.
So the creeps meeting a bit differently makes a huge change. So offlane is actually winnable nowadays. You can actually win the lane and own them. And also it’s about items, some really strong items for offlaners were added. It’s not fully figured out yet, though. I mean I didn’t play enough myself but it feels way easier already.”
You’ve had a pretty intense schedule, especially this start of the year. And then in April, there’s qualifiers, there’s PGL, there’s a lot of stuff going on. Do you kind of like this pace of events, or would you like maybe a bit more break, a bit more time in between events, or are you kind of happy with the way the schedule works?
BOOM: “Well, I think the schedule is… For me it’s good, but the thing is, like, with our consistency, we have to kind of play a lot of the qualifiers, you know? So the qualifiers are what makes it actually very busy. Because the qualifiers, let’s say, take four days or five days, you know? And then there’s two qualifiers in one month, so it’s already like half your month is gone. You go to the qualifier, you know, and then you go straight into it.
So, like, for the top teams, it’s like, this schedule is like very nice, I think. Because they don’t play the qualifiers, they’re invited, they have like maybe two events per month. And they have some breaks in the finals also, so I like it. But we just have to get there, you know? We just have to get good and we’ll get invited and it’s gonna be very nice.”
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Image Credit: Razer/MOUZ
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