Christopher "dexter" Nong discussed his adaptation to a new roster as an IGL, Ádám "torzsi" Torzsás's confidence, and explained why MOUZ had the worst CT-side winrate among Cologne competitors. Escorenews talked with Australian IGL after his loss to Astralis.
Dexter's feelings on match with Astralis
I feel a bit more disappointed because I watched back the games, and I was like, "Oh man, we should've closed that out". I definitely knew in the moment that we should've closed it out, but we lost too many bad rounds. It is what it is, so whatever. At least I tried to enjoy that moment and experience with my team, and that's all. [What were the key factors in your loss?] It was like a range of everything. They abused one thing on Ancient, and we couldn't adapt fast enough. By the time we adapted, we already lost.
On torszi's confident performance and esports psychologists
I think he works with the esports psychologist quite a bit. How to show his emotions, use it and whatnot. I'm not really sure what exactly goes on there, but he's always hardworking on his weaknesses. He improves and improves, we always try to hype him up and everyone who has a good round. The energy just flew, it was really good.
When I first came to Europe, it was during the height of the pandemic, so it was very difficult to get going. Because I couldn't even meet people, go out to eat, go out for drinks. So Oliver, esports psychologist, is just a good friend now. He took me out to places when eating. Same with Leon, my ex-manager. They were really good at helping me not be so alone, basically. Just these little details help a lot.
Should every team have a psychologist?
It depends on the team, but I think every team might have one these days because CS is an emotional game right now. And we need to manage it. And these guys are 19-year-old kids with lots of hormones and whatever. The esports psychologists, they always try to help us to direct those emotions and use what's good for the team and themselves. From what I've seen, they grew as people more than players, and it's always good to see.
MOUZ was the best T-sided and worst CT-sided team in Cologne. Why?
I'm not sure about our CT side. I guess we were kinda waiting for things to happen. Normally, in practice, our CT side is quite good because we're often disrupting and attacking. But recently, for these games, we had such good T-sides that we were a bit more pressured to not make mistakes as CT. And when you're not doing anything in defense, the opponents can do whatever they want. And that's what was happening.
On getting out of the losing streak
We had a small psychologist weekend, you can say. After we got knocked out [in Dallas], we had to stay there, and we talked to each other for two or three days. We were just in a hotel room. I said to our coach, Sycrone, and our psychologist that we need to restructure everything.
So we started from zero again in terms of our talks. We talked about what we like and dislike about each other and how we're going to improve each other for whatever reason. And then we just structured everything from there to continue. We needed to release our emotions from having such a bad couple of tournaments. And here we are.
Comparing the lineup with previous roster
Old roster, everyone had lots of experience and understanding about the game. In terms of how to control things, and play their own way, and have individual identity. Ropz and acoR, they know how they want to play. And it is very easy for me to play and I don't have to do too much. I just call something basic, and the mid-round communication is so good that I call at the end of a round.
But with this team, some people are a bit more hesitant with decision-making. So I have to transition the way I want to call to make strats that are more focused on putting them in the right place. And no matter what, they're gonna end up there, or we get information. It’s more focused on strats, getting them into the right area, and me mid-round calling rather than me not doing so much compared to last year.
Did MOUZ feel like a home team in Cologne?
Yeah, I definitely feel like we do. I've been living in Germany for a year and a half. And we have one German player. And everyone was supporting him, and it felt good for us as a team. Yeah, it felt really nice to represent the org and just do our best.
MOUZ surprised everyone getting to IEM Cologne playoffs by winning against Heroic, Vitality and Ninjas in Pyjamas. Their run ended in the quarterfinals, where the team lost to Astralis and finished the event at the 5-6th place with $40k. This is the best MOUZ result on big LAN tournaments in a long time.
