MOUZ eliminate Cloud9 from BLAST after landslide series

MOUZ will go up against FaZe and their former teammate, David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský, in the semi-finals.

MOUZ are through to the BLAST Premier World Final semi-finals after a dominant win over Cloud9 that saw the European side go on 11 and 12-round streaks on Mirage and Ancient.

WIth the landslide victory, the Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek-led side have earned the chance to go up against FaZe in the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi in their first encounter against former teammate frozen.

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier World Final 2023
16/12/2023	FaZe 12:30 MOUZ	Match

Cloud9 had gone into the match as significant favorites due to MOUZ playing the tournament with a stand-in, Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin, but they couldn't make their Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov-inspired aggressive playstyle work.

Their one-dimensional approach to Mirage was met with a stern response from siuhy's team, who won a few close rounds at the beginning of the half before they shut down rush after rush on the CT side.

Cloud9's only respite on the opener was that they prevented a complete whitewash with the final round of the first half, and they went into the second map with heads low.

"We expected this pick from MOUZ, but we played at 20% or something like that," Konstantin "⁠groove⁠" Pikiner said about the first map after the match. "We just tried to play fast, and that's why we didn't hear each other, so it was a snowball from my view."

Ancient followed, where Cloud9 got off to a much better start on their Terrorist side, courtesy of a Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy 1v2 clutch in the pistol round and his and Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov's 2v5 conversion on B in the sixth round.

But even from a 7-1 lead the Russian side could not push the match to . MOUZ finally tightened up the defense in the final four rounds of the half, shutting down Cloud9's executes early, and that was the beginning of the end for the Russians.

A successful retake in the second pistol round was for nothing when Cloud9 just about could not defuse the bomb in time, a mere 0.01 seconds making the difference, and from there MOUZ completely took over the game.

MOUZ were prepared for the same aggressive stance on B that had worked so well for Boombl4 against ENCE two days ago, and completed a 12-round run to secure their semi-final spot.