Meta Monday: siuhy's confidence calls on Mirage that broke Heroic's back

Delve into the mind of MOUZ's new in-game leader as he recounts how he got one over HEROIC with GamerLegion in the BLAST.tv Paris Major's semi-finals.

Harry Richards contributed to this article.

Today we look at one of the matches that cemented Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek as one of the most interesting IGLs for teams scouring the market this summer off-season. The Pole led MOUZ NXT to four WePlay Academy League titles at the youth level, but his days with GamerLegion are what put him in the orbit of elite teams. MOUZ's main squad, where some of his former NXT teammates now play, brought him back into the fold as well.

The particular rounds covered today are from the third map of the BLAST.tv Paris Major semi-final bout between GamerLegion and HEROIC. The Mirage decider, which went the way of GL, left fans and pundits in awe. It also catapulted siuhy from a rising in-game leader straight into the spotlight and did the same for Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan as he became a frontrunner for the MVP medal. The series was played in front of a packed Accor Arena and pitted the international side against one of the main powerhouses in Counter-Strike: HEROIC.

The bout kicked off on Ancient and Inferno, GamerLegion and HEROIC's picks, respectively. The two went down to the wire, but were not won by the team picking it. Ancient went to HEROIC 16-13 before a thirty round affair put the series back at a stalemate.

siuhy's calling really shined on that Mirage decider and a 10-5 T-side lead gave way to a lopsided 16-6 final score which secured GamerLegion a spot in the Major grand final. "There's no denying that they've had an unbelievable run," Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller said after the match, "but today they took down one of the big dogs. Nothing but respect for that."

The first round we're looking at is the sixth round of Mirage, a four-man dry peek down Mid by GamerLegion. At first, it may seem thoughtless to fly out without using any utility, but here context is key. In the two previous rounds GamerLegion had played one of their well known defaults. "Heroic tried to fight or at least contest middle in the two previous rounds, but we expected that outcome and we came out on top of it both times," siuhy recalls.

"Due to the way these two rounds went, in the sixth round we had a few options," siuhy explained. "For example, we could continue playing like we just did knowing that we control the pace of the game, or change it up with a surprise call because we know that Heroic will now expect a similar call to the two previous rounds."

In their previous games, which HEROIC probably watched in anticipation of their bout, GamerLegion never changed that drastically so early into the game, so siuhy decided to switch it up this time around. "I opted for the second option instantly as from my perspective it's also a confidence round," he said, "which if you win, as a team you gain a lot of confidence and you start controlling the pace of the game."

The second round we look at is the tenth round of GamerLegion's T side on Mirage. siuhy's decision of going with the bomb alone down Short and committing towards B rather than A, where iM got two opening kills setting up a good position for an A Split, was questioned despite working out in the attacking team's favor.

"Initially, the plan was to split A as we knew that the AWP was on B and we aimed to avoid it," siuhy said. "The information we had was: AWP is B house, jabbi (Short player) should still be on Short and TeSeS (B Apps player) should be on rotation towards A because cadiaN took over B Apps for him."

While GamerLegion were setting up for the A split in Close Connector, siuhy believes they heard René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen rotating from B to A, but the plan to split A was still on since in theory only two players should be waiting on A with TeSeS on close rotation.

Then a kill from Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard onto Frederik "⁠acoR⁠" Gyldstrand from the WIndow in Mid changed everything. "jabbi is their Short player," siuhy said, "so now we know there's only one player on B and that we are running into an A stack. I instantly recognized this, so I started to head down Short with the bomb while iM still pushed Connector to keep up the A pressure."

iM did a great job not only selling the fake as siuhy called the audible, but also cracked the round open with two entries in Jungle. "While all of this was happening we had a B apps lurker who was giving us information on what the AWPer, cadiaN, was doing on B," siuhy recalls.

"And again, following my point from the first analysis, at this stage of the game we felt in control of the pace and what was happening on the map," siuhy concluded, "which allowed us to just play a lot more freely on the map — exactly the way you see in this round with isak freely lurking B Apps late in the round and me playing alone with the bomb on Mid/Short."

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