Mousesports continue their momentum since the CSGO Asia Championship with yet another event win at cs_summit 5. making this their 3rd event win in a row. Like with the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, this tournament was another underdog story. Heading into the tournament, the team had lost Özgür “woxic” Eker to visa issues, forcing them to bring in Niels Christian “NaToSaphiX“ Sillassen as a substitute. In the grand finals, mousesports was down to three men. Finn “Karrigan” Anderson had to leave at the end of map one due to other visa complications for the Epicenter Major in Russia this weekend. Yet, mousesports defied the odds as they came out on top with two stand-ins, and upset the likes of Astralis.
Mouse’s cs_summit journey
It looked to be just another event for a resurgent mousesports. In the group stages, they lost several maps to teams like Virtus Pro (now former VP), MIBR, and G2 Esports. In the play-in stage, they drew OG, with the series going 2-1 to mouse, in what was a relatively close series played on Mirage and Dust II.
Moving into the finals, G2 looked like the favourites. With Karrigan’s announcement that he had to leave partway through the series, it looked bleak for the mousesports side. The first map couldn’t have gone any worse for mouse either. Mouse looked to be in the position to take the map 16-14. But, an amazing round 30 from G2 put it into overtime. Following on, the overtime rounds looked too close for comfort. Then mouse ended up winning, with 20 minutes to spare on Karrigan’s departure time.
Replacing Karrigan was Allan “Rejin” Petersen, the mousesports coach. Rejin had not played a professional game of CS:GO since 2016. His 1st game back was lackluster, with mousesports defeated 16-1 onVertigo, a map that G2 Esports had already beat them on in the group stages.
The deciding map was on Train, and G2 was off to a great start. By half time, G2 found themselves with a 10-5 lead, with the round switching over. However, Train is one of mousesports best maps. They too had a 5-10 deficit against Astralis in the EPL Season 10 Finals and that came to their aid in a 16-14 win on the map. The story repeated itself here, as the roster once again made the comeback to win cs_summit 5.
Mousesports have shown strength in adversity
This is an impressive feat for mousesports. The guys have won three tournaments back-to-back, with a variety of unique challenges at every single one. Even with two substitutes, they still had what it took to lift a trophy and comeback after menacing odds.
Mousesports continue to look impressive at every event they have attended in December. They are definitely a team to watch out for next year, but these results are more impressive than first anticipated.
For mousesports, the next big challenge for them is to win Epicenter and end their impressive year with another big win. It is understandable with all these visa struggles and tournament fatigue that it might prove too much, but the culture in the team looks like it cannot be shaken given their cs_summit 5 circumstances.
Also, a special shoutout to NaToSpahiX. For a substitute filling in woxic’s role, the young Dane played exceptionally well and he shouldn’t be short of suitors if he wants to find a more permanent position.
At EPICENTER 2019, they will once again meet the likes of Heroic, Na’Vi, Team Vitality, and Evil Geniuses. It is likely against these teams who have been off-screen for a few weeks may play upset to mouse. But only time will tell if that is the case or not.
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