mousesports defeat OpTic in Malmö

With a 2-0 victory over OpTic (16-10 Mirage, 16-13 Nuke), MOUZ eliminated OpTic from the event and are now one BO3 victory away from the playoffs.

MOUZ were off to a swift 5-1 lead on the T side of their map pick, Mirage, before David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský had to come up big with a 1v3 clutch to save his side from an anti-eco scare. For the following few rounds, Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen was set on exploiting B, but the opposing Danes were finding success on the defense, with an inspired Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke leading the charge.

OpTic managed to take the lead back before the end of the half (8-7), but MOUZ' confident start as CT saw them swiftly get back into the driver's seat, 13-9. Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker was proving especially hard to deal with for OpTic and he eventually reached a 29-12 K-D as MOUZ closed out the game confidently, 16-10.

A perfect pistol round was exactly what OpTic needed to start well on the T-side of Nuke, but unfortunately for them, the force buy from MOUZ worked out and gave them the economy advantage early into the map. Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen's team struggled to break the defenses, finally getting their second in round 10, and followed that up with a half-buy to make the score 9-3.

Unable to win another round before the end of the half OpTic had high hopes for the pistol, but ended overrun on ramp and with MOUZ on the edge of victory (13-3). That's where the struggles started for MOUZ, who were unable to clean up the following round and went on to lose eight of the next nine. As the score was 14-11, MOUZ gathered their focus, and with the help of some tactical timeouts, closed out the game 16-13.