After becoming a perennial playoff team, MOUZ’s elimination at the hands of 9z in the Group Stage of BLAST Open Rotterdam felt like a seismic moment.
A run of 17 consecutive playoff appearances at Tier 1 events was ended by the South American team, with MOUZ not only missing out on the playoffs but finishing dead last.
Recent losses to FUT, The MongolZ, and 9z signified a potential collapse of the sky-high ceiling that saw MOUZ come so close yet so far to Counter-Strike glory.
‘Nearly team’ hits emotional barrier
A ‘nearly team’ is only a nearly team until they win. For no roster does this principle hold more evident than the TSM/Astralis roster, whose ‘choking’ was a one-time infamous aspect of the core.
That mentality has been central to MOUZ’s hitherto resilience. The ‘first big win’ became a mythical beast that has frequently been cited by MOUZ’s players, and by their coach Dennis ‘sycrone’ Nielsen, in interviews.
Speaking after their Budapest elimination to FaZe, syrcone told Esports News UK, “At some point, we have to break through; we have to make it happen… I believe that once you get that first win, everything becomes a lot easier.”
It seems now, more than ever, that it will not happen. Rather than things becoming easier, suddenly even the simple things are much harder because that belief is buckling under the stress of over a year of repeated failure.
That’s not to give the wrong impression. It’s genuinely impressive that their mental strength lasted this long. There have been dozens of times in the last year when a defeat seemed to threaten to implode the roster, yet MOUZ continued to maintain their excellent level.
MOUZ continued to believe that it would happen to them. That they would overcome that hurdle together, and forever transform their perception.
But the roster can seemingly no longer run their heads into the wall and hope it will break. Instead, they have to make a change in their approach, and that likely means roster changes.
Identifying MOUZ’s struggles
To be realistic, MOUZ as an organization has always punched above its weight. We cannot expect that MOUZ will go out and buy superstars from elsewhere in the Counter-Strike landscape.
Instead, let’s look more reasonably at what MOUZ have lacked and what they may benefit from, not in terms of individuals, but in terms of archetypes.
In the current roster, the player with the most-obvious target on their back is Ludvig ‘brollan’ Brolin. The Swedish IGL was instated as IGL following the kicking of Kamil ‘siuhy’ Szkaradek, seemingly for team dynamic reasons.
While the Swede has not won as much as siuhy for MOUZ, you can easily argue that the team has been overall playing at a much higher level with brollan as IGL… but their T sides have severely languished.
MOUZ have consistently struggled to find opening kills on the T-side, with one of the worst Opening Kill Percentages in Tier 1 Counter-Strike, starting T-side rounds in a 4v5 deficit more often than not.
In cases where Dorian ‘xertioN’ Berman cannot get activated, MOUZ’s midrounds look extremely basic. This was previously only a big problem in the playoffs, where xertioN struggled most, but has spread to the group stages in 2026.
The entry’s T-sided HLTV rating is 0.94 in 2026, down from 1.08 average in 2025. The Israeli also averaged a 1.08 T-side average in the last three months of 2025, with a similar sample size to 2026 so far.
The struggles resulting from xertioN’s deaths can be looked at in different ways. One way is to simply say that brollan is not using his pieces as he should.
The other way is that MOUZ, in general, lacks aggressive players, making it difficult for MOUZ to have diverse openings, and compromising brollan’s ability to call a decent midround where space-taking is required.
MOUZ’s passivity problem
Certainly, MOUZ has an overall balance that you could accurately describe as ‘passive’ by nature. Jimi ‘jimpphat’ Salo is a pure anchor, Lotan ‘Spinx’ Giladi is a passive lurker.
After xertioN dies, brollan is necessarily the person throwing himself into contact, but that role is beginning to feel more sacrificial rather than functional.
While players can be coached to play differently, the aggressive vs passive divide is often understood as one of the most difficult things to change about a player, an innate property in the profile of a pro.
What makes MOUZ so formidable on CT side is the same thing that causes difficulties on the T side. They have players who are comfortably to act as sentries, controlling a space and fending off attacks, but are not comfortable taking space.
This results in xertioN having the bulk of the space-taking burden across MOUZ’s T-sides. In 2026, that space-taking is looking increasingly desperate and easy to counter.
The obvious solution is adding a more aggressive player on the T-side, something made more complicated by MOUZ’s current role structure.
Currently, xertioN and Spinx largely share the star roles on the CT side, something which we have established works extremely well, even in 2026.
If xertioN or Spinx keep their roles on the CT side, they need an aggressive T-side player who plays anchor spots, something which is much more rare.
Another potential solution is to move Spinx to anchor roles, roles in which he has shone in the past, but that he would likely not favour currently.
Either way, another aggressive piece on the roster can help balance a MOUZ that is imbalanced in the passive direction.
Do MOUZ lack leadership?
Another aspect that puts brollan under the figurative microscope is the question marks surrounding his leadership of the team.
While brollan has been praised for his tactical understanding of the game, emotional leadership doesn’t seem to be a strong suit of the Swede. Instead, you will see Ádám ‘torzsi’ Torzsás take the emotional lead in an otherwise reserved roster.
It is not impossible to make a quiet captain work, but that emotional leadership needs to come from somewhere in a team that has four relatively quiet pieces.
Syrcone has mentioned that emotional leadership was an aspect MOUZ was working on with brollan. In and of itself, that is an admission that something is lacking. Something that might make a difference when it comes to winning trophies.
For a team that has shied away from so many big matches, the question of whether the team is emotionally robust enough in those moments looms large.
That is an aspect which is even more evident when their chief rival is led by Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire. With the Vitality IGL slinging insults MOUZ’s way, the team seems bullied inside and out of the server.
What might MOUZ target in a roster change?
On balance of what we have discussed, MOUZ are most likely going to look at a change in IGL to shift their current malaise. Changing the IGL doesn’t hold the risk of losing a young star, nor does it break up the MOUZ NXT core that MOUZ is built around.
If issues surrounding leadership are also a concern, the clear solution would be a more aggressive IGL, who is willing to take duels and create space for the team, enabling MOUZ’s more passive pieces to activate when they want to, later in the round.
While xertioN will always remain the hard entry, a second aggressive player in the roster is a must if they want to take the next step forward.
We saw the transformative aspects of adding that aggressive element in 2025, when Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis joined FURIA. His presence allowed Kaike ‘KSCERATO’ Cerato and Yuri ‘yuurih’ Boian to be FURIA’s one-two punch, closing out rounds.
The roster may also be looking towards Jimpphat as a potential departure. The player was already linked with moves outside of MOUZ in both the winters of 2024 and 2025.
The Finn declined markedly in 2025, implying that this chemistry with bombsite partner Spinx is not ideal. A replacement with a more proactive player could also benefit the roster, with former MOUZ NXT lurker Oldřich ‘PR’ Nový an option to return.
Considering William ‘mezii’ Merriman’s uptick following the departure of Spinx, MOUZ should also consider if Spinx’s habits harm his anchor, with the Israel rifler’s passivity often limiting the space his teammate can play around.
For MOUZ, the dream of breaking through with this five may be over, but the potential that exists in the roster may be further unlocked by fixing issues that existed even at the team’s peak.
The roster may have to take a step back before it can move forward again.
What do you think MOUZ should do? Discuss that on our community Discord server!
For more Counter-Strike news, see who qualified for the BLAST Open Rotterdam playoffs (not MOUZ).
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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