torzsi: "I wouldn't say that the performance I had last year was only on dexter"

"The big part was on me in my opinion, I didn't perform well, and the part that I wasn't in a system that suited me was just making the situation worse," the Hungarian AWPer added.

MOUZ got off to a hot start with their new roster after the tournament break, securing wins over The MongolZ, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Natus Vincere during IEM Cologne and its Play-in stage. The European combine ended up missing out on the playoffs following subsequent losses to Vitality and Astralis, and have had little to play in since then, only taking part in Thunderpick World Championship Europe Series 1 and missing out on Gamers8.

The team will finally return to action in Malta when Group B of ESL Pro League gets underway, with their first match pitting them against MIBR. HLTV spoke to Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás about those upcoming matches and what the team has been doing to prepare, as well as to get his thoughts on the rise in his individual form since the addition of Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek and Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo during the off-season.

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 18
06/09/2023	MOUZ 19:30 MIBR	Match

First, I wanted to ask about IEM Cologne, the last Big Event you played. I know it was a little while ago now, but how do you feel looking back on that event?

Overall, for me I think it was a good event, and for the team as well. It was the first event for us as a new team, and I think for the first event it was alright. It was not the best, it could have been better, but I think we played some good games and we beat some good enemies. For example, versus NAVI and NIP we showed that we can play good CS, but we just crumbled versus Astralis.

You personally seemed to be back to something like your best in Cologne, I think people were a little bit disappointed maybe with some of your performances toward the end of the previous roster. How do you feel about your personal level now?

Last year was pretty tough for me. I didn't perform how I wanted, but at the same time I think I learned a lot of stuff from dexter and also from the old roster. We played a lot together, more than one year, and the experience I gained there was incredible, it was really nice.

Toward the end of the last team it was pretty tough, I didn't know if I would stay in the team or not. I wasn't sure about that, I didn't feel really good, but when they told me I will stay in the team I knew that this is my time. I'm glad to be back with Kamil [siuhy], with the NXT guys, and David [frozen]. I just knew that it's going to be great and it's my time to show what I'm capable of, what I learned the last one and a half years. I feel like I'm on a good path now so I feel really good, I'm in good shape at the moment and I'm ready for the changes that are coming up.

Do you think siuhy suits you more as an in-game leader? Do you think that's why you're able to perform a little bit better, at least statistically?

[laughs] This is a tricky question. I mean, yes, I think siuhy fits me better for my playstyle, but I wouldn't say that the performance I had last year was only on dexter. The big part was on me in my opinion, I didn't perform well, and the part that I wasn't in a system that suited me was just making the situation worse.

I wouldn't say dexter had a bad system, I think they are both good, but I have a better connection with Kamil. I really like him, he's also my age, we are more close, and he is a really good friend of mine. We have a really good connection and that just helps, outside and inside the game. I would say it helps to get me better statistics, but I also play better than last year.

Yeah, I think that's showing on the server as well. Is it good for you then, to have most of that old NXT roster together? Is that something where the chemistry is good, is that important for this new team to have those pieces back together?

Yeah, it is really important. I think one of the most important things in a team is chemistry, how the players are flowing together, and I think we have a really young team here. Everybody is from the same generation and we kind of see CS in the same way. We are just fitting really well together. We are really young and we need to work on that because it can cause a lot of problems, we can be really explosive in the server and we need to keep it calm and collected throughout the games, but we are working on that.

In general, it is very important what you said with the chemistry, and I think we are heading toward a great team here. Everyone is really young and talented, I don't know what the future brings but I think it will be very nice.

Do you think it will be helpful for CS2? I know we're playing CS:GO right now, but having some players who are a bit hungrier than some older players can be, maybe have a bit more time to dedicate to the game, do you think that's going to put you in a good place for CS2?

I'm not sure about CS2. I didn't play it a lot, I played my first games, but in general I think it is always helpful to the younger players if there is something new, because I think younger people maybe, I'm not sure about this, but they can adapt better and faster, and they are also more curious probably and can figure out a lot of things from the new game like new smokes, new one-ways. I would say yes, I think it can help young players, but also older people can be the same [level of] curious, they can have the same excitement.

I wanted to ask a little bit about the youngest player on your team, Jimpphat. How has he been settling in?

Jimmy joined before Cologne, and he is a really talented player. He adapts really well to the game, mostly he plays the same roles that he played in NXT, he has changed some positions but he could adapt really fast. One of the biggest things about him is that he understands the game really well, like he knows what needs to happen on the server and he is an amazing teammate.

Outside of the server I would say he is a little bit quiet, because he is from Finland maybe it's his personality, he doesn't talk too much. I think it's fine, he feels good in the team and we are trying to make him more comfortable day by day.

As I said in the last question, he is just as young as us and we have a great connection and we have great chemistry, so the settling in was successful. Also we had a bootcamp and we worked on that as well, like how we deal with Jimmy and things like that, and it went pretty smooth. He's a great teammate.

That's really good to hear. You mentioned you had a bootcamp — since IEM Cologne, you haven't played too many officials. Some of the other tier-one teams had Gamers8, you did play in Thunderpick but some of the other teams in your group like Monte, for example, have played a lot of online CS since Cologne. Do you have any thoughts about not playing too many officials, do you think that is going to hurt the team?

We were thinking about playing online events and we wanted to, but unfortunately we didn't make the qualifier for Gamers8. That hurt us obviously, so we had only this Thunderpick qualifier and we won that, which was okay, it was good, but other than that we didn't play.

Yeah, we were thinking about this because we are too young, we need to experience how we play in officials as well, like what is the difference between practice and officials. We wanted to play more officials, but missing Gamers8 was a big thing I would say in the last month. Instead of that, we had a great bootcamp, as I mentioned. I don't think it will hurt us, that we didn't play too many officials, because teams cannot really know what we prepared.

Does that make Pro League quite a good tournament for you then, because if you do lose a game here or there, you've got more chances, and a chance to get a lot of official games on LAN? Is that going to be helpful for a team that's as young as you?

Yeah I think it actually helps us a lot, now that you mention it, I didn't really think about it until now. It gives us a lot of chances, and also to play a lot of games which is good, but obviously our goal is to make it to the playoffs as fast as we can and not to play in the last-chance qualifier with six or seven games.

But if that is the case, then I think it can help us gain more experience so it can help the team, but on the other hand for me, I don't really like this, too many chances. I think the format is really forgiving and I really prefer double-elimination. It's a fine line, but giving last chance after that... I'm not sure.

Heroic and ENCE are the two clear best teams in the group. It looks like you'll probably be fighting with BIG and Monte for those last spots — how do you feel about those two teams?

We played versus BIG in the Thunderpick championship final and we beat them, but they had a lot of time to prepare as well. I think BIG is a great team and I think if we play versus each other, it will be a great game. It's the same with Monte, but I don't really have more information about Monte. We didn't really practice versus them a lot and also I haven't watched their games a lot, so I just can't really say anything to be honest.