Mousesports Will Be A Top 4 CS:GO Team For A Long Time To Come

With all the fallen greats in 2018, it was certain new teams were going to rise to fill the void.

Some of these new Top 4 teams, Na’vi and Fnatic, feel like placeholders for better teams to overcome them. But mousesports, unlike these other teams, feels like the real deal.

This is strange. Out of three top teams, it isn’t the veterans of fnatic, not s1mple’s team, but essentially rookies to the top 4 that seem to be playing the most sustainable counter-strike. Why?

To figure out why mousesports csgo are such a peculiar team we’ve got to look at how they play. Looking at the roster makeup, we’d assume that mousesports are a skill-based team. Without a career in-game leader and a roster of new faces at the top level, it’s difficult to imagine a particularly deep tactical team. For this reason, many speak of mouz as an aggressive, raid-and-trade kind of team. This was an appropriate description when this lineup was first formed, but it isn’t true anymore. Far beyond loose teams like Fnatic or Space Soldiers, mousesports rely on a deep tactical base to get them through the game.

Mousesports’ aggression is distinctive because it is calculated. At their best, the plays they make don’t stem from sudden inspiration but careful deliberation. Consequently these waves of aggression are thorough in their detail. There’s always the right flash to peek in, and the follow-up to escape. If not then there will be someone to trade, if not two others. The meticulous attention ChrisJ and their coach LMBT pay to the creation of different and detailed aggressive CT setups and T map control gives mousesports a layer of depth to their play that goes beyond other teams with similar constitutions.

This tactical layer to mouz I think will prove to be a substantial difference between its success and Na’vi’s or Fnatic’s. Though teams have had many months now to study and counter the newest elite team, mouz has continuously been able to break open bombsites with powerful entries and take map control by finding crafty picks. As far as the opening of a gun round, mousesports have been of the best in the world. This gives them an advantage over damn near any team they face, and chrisJ and company are making the best of it.

There is a concern for mousesports however. At IEM Sydney, mouz played two best-of-three’s against Astralis, and it wasn’t pretty. Remember how I said mousesports succeed in the opening of a round? Well, in five maps against the Danes, mouz went 38 to 83 in first kills. That’s a 31.4% entry success rate for the team collectively. To be fair, Astralis are riding incredible form right now. But conversely, it’s worrying that a pivotal player in sunNy can go -10 in first kill differential over a single best-of-three. For this reason I think it’s fair to say mousesports won’t be the world’s best team anytime soon.

That said, given their continuous success and their deceptively tactical approach to the game, mousesports look to be here in the Top 4 to stay, which is surprising. With chrisJ as an in-game leader and LMBT as a coach, the organization has finally found a roster that sticks. They aren’t just an upset team with an amazing player, whether that be Niko or later oskar. This time, mousesports csgo play like a real team and consequently have earned the results of a real team. And they’re just getting started.

Enjoy this piece? Check out our IEM Sydney Highlight Video!