siuhy on returning to MOUZ: "The chemistry that we had just came back to us instantly"

siuhy sat down with HLTV after beating NAVI at IEM Cologne to talk about his MOUZ homecoming.

Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek sat down to chat with HLTV after MOUZ's first victory at IEM Cologne in a 2-0 series against Natus Vincere. Before that, the European squad had already showed promise in the play-in by taking out The MongolZ and Ninjas in Pyjamas.

The Polish in-game leader shared his thoughts on his return to MOUZ, where he reunited with several former teammates from MOUZ NXT, and gave his first impressions about the homecoming.

You had a real homecoming in MOUZ. You're back with the boys, what's it like?

It's really good. The chemistry that we had back then just came back to us instantly, from day one. I'm really happy to see that and also it just gives us a lot more confidence coming into the game, knowing that we like to spend time with each other and enjoy each other's atmosphere. It's definitely a huge plus.

You spent some time in GamerLegion and did some amazing things there against the odds. What did you bring back with you?

I think the main thing would be the experience and my development of leadership in the team. It's something I looked forward to working on. I took a year where I was able to progress with a stable tier two team and make progress possibly into a tier one team, or at least competing against tier one teams.

It was definitely a really good experience for a player like me, who just came from an academy team. It was exactly what I was looking for to just continue developing my progress and my career.

During that time your now teammates were also making their own progress, living their own experiences and getting experience at a higher level. What did you notice when you came back?

They're definitely a lot more mature, you can see it also outside of the server. They're just more developed people and you can see they progressed a lot, but the atmosphere that they brought then is also back here now. It's good to see.

In-game you can see that they're a lot smarter, you could say, as easy as that sounds. But yeah, there's definitely a huge step up from them. They had their own path to the main team — I took a different one —, but they're all a lot better players now.

One of them you didn't play with, frozen. What was it like jumping into a team with a player like him? What were your first impressions?

It was actually a good experience since the beginning. I think he's a very smart person and the way he shows what he wants from teammates is really good. For his age he's very experienced, so that's also very good for the team. It's also something I can take and learn from. I can look up to him, like I always did, probably.

So yeah, just learning from him, the experience he brings to the team and the calmness in situations like against NAVI. There were situations when we needed to calm down and he was the person taking charge, so that's really good to see and it's really good to play with a player like that.

Out of all of the teammates it seems like torzsi was the one struggling a little bit before. There were even some rumors out that he may not stay in the team, although in the end he did. It seems like he's finding a bit of that old spark which is what got him to the first team. Have you talked about it at all with him?

When I came into the team it wasn't the main focus to work on torzsi or anything like that because I always knew that he had it in him. I kind of just worked around him and on other pieces while he developed himself and got comfortable in my system. I think it just works for him and he seems happy now, so I'm glad to see that as a leader.

There wasn't anything specific we worked on with torzsi, maybe it's the system or how others work now or me taking more space and initiative a lot more often and he can play off of that. Maybe it's things like that.

Regarding first results, you've taken down a NIP that is looking competitive and a NAVI that has gone through a big restructuring but still has big name players. How do you feel about getting these victories? What potential this team has?

It's really good, for sure. It's our first tournament together and to see that we can perform instantly is a huge motivational factor. It's also great for the experience of knowing that maybe when in a month or two we'll have a downside, something will happen, and then we'll be in a slump... It's good to see we're capable of doing it, so that when we're down we'll know what we should fall back to.

Coming back to the team when it comes to strategy... You said you grew while you were away, the team grew while you were away, so what was the meeting of the minds like?

It was pretty easy from the start, to be honest. Yes, I was in GamerLegion and obviously played different than what they did, but I took a few things that I really liked and how they worked. So I took them, I thought about them, how I could adapt that into a new team with new players who play differently — maybe more aggressively, maybe more passively —, and how I needed to adapt that system.

They [MOUZ] also had really good things, they were a really good team, so I tried to balance what they had and what we worked on. Also, as the meta is evolving basically every day, it's something we're adapting to. We're making sure we're fresh every day and adding new things all of the time.

Jimpphat is the youngest guy on the team and the least experienced. He's fresh from the academy, where he started playing some of the positions he has now, but in his last stint he also had more star roles. What are your thoughts about him as a player and him returning to the anchor roles and adapting to that again?

It's very enjoyable to play with Jimi, he's a very funny person. Outside of the server he brings a really good atmosphere to the team, we have a lot of fun, and like with every other teammate the atmosphere and the chemistry just clicked, which is really good — he's also a part of that.

In-game we try to make him as comfortable as possible, the roles he is playing are roles he wanted and looked into. The main goal was just to make him comfortable, let him do his own thing, and for him to work on his own development by himself, as well, but also having us to help him.

This is so he learns his own ways into tier one and bigger tournaments against better teams, but then we can also just help out behind the scenes.