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StarSeries Season 8: The biggest stories so far

StarSeries Season 8 has seen a number of twists and turns

We’re halfway through the Starladder StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 8 and the tournament has already produced some major takeaways. The event has currently exited its group stage elimination process, and with it has offered us some prominent storylines. With that in mind, let’s dig into the most important ones so far.

Is mousesports slowing down?

Mousesports seem to have slowed down recently. They’ve had their moments in the spotlight in recent tournaments, challenging well in qualifiers, but falling short in the top tier events. For example, at the DreamHack Malmo qualifier and ESL Pro League group stages, mouz topped the run. Meanwhile, on stage against the more elite teams, they seem to be struggling.

At the Berlin Major, they choked out against Team Vitality. This happened again at DreamHack Malmo. And as for this tournament, they lost to North 2-1 in the opening round, fell to the lower bracket, and only just beat IG 2-0, eventually losing to Fnatic 2-0 in a close series.

Once again, this revived mousesports seems to be faltering. In a recent Twitter post, Finn “karrigan” Andersen mentioned they need to change roles up. Karrigan is internationally renowned for his tactical genius, so perhaps a switch-up in the roster is enough to revive mouz in time for the ESL Pro League Season 10 finals and IEM Beijing.

Karrigan talking about needing to switch the team roles about

Evil Geniuses personal record ends

Evil Geniuses had one of the strongest runs in Counter-Strike in recent months. They were considered a contender in the Berlin Major, won ESL One New York, but were humiliated at DreamHack Malmo, where they were eliminated without winning a single series.

However, Evil Geniuses has since recovered. They’ve moved on in tournaments, against teams that want to show they can challenge them. So far this event, EG has been tested well by their opposition, most notably Ninjas in Pyjamas. NiP defeated them 2-1 in the upper bracket, although they had a rematch in the lower bracket seeding round where EG won 2-0. Meanwhile Heroic gave them some LAN hall trash talk, which got to them in the first map.

But most importantly NiP ended EG’s three-month Dust II and Inferno winning spree. NiP clearly had a gameplan ready for them, as on both of those maps the Swedes won 16-4. EG are clearly still fallible, from falling off at points in game, and having their map picks being deconstructed.

Ninjas in Pyjamas end Evil Geniuses 3-month long undefeated map picks

Natus Vincere fails to win a series

In one of the more shocking turns of events, Natus Vincere failed to win a single series in the StarSeries Season 8 group stages. This is a rather large upset since their recent roster moves have brought much more life back into the lineup. Since the changes, Na’Vi finished 3rd-4th at DreamHack Malmo, toped their ESL Pro League Group, only to be destroyed here. This result is even more surprising when you take into account their performance in the past two events.

However, this is more than likely a fluke. Na’Vi faced off against G2 Esports at the start of the tournament, an opponent they previously beat to top their group at the ESL Pro League Group Stage. Coming into this event, G2 and Na’Vi were fresh against each other. Losing to G2 here would not be the end of the world since the team is currently enjoying a resurgence. Although, losing to Heroic 0-2, even on close maps was salt in the wound. Na’Vi will be walking away sour from this event, but there is no doubt they will come back stronger for it.

No doubt they will have learnt a lot from an early exit as well

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