xertioN: "I just want us to translate this into Katowice, Cologne, and Majors"

MOUZ proved they were, in torzsi's words, "kings of the studio," but xertioN has his eyes on more glory.

Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman is champion of ESL Pro League for a second time, as MOUZ took their strong 2024 to a new level with a Big Event victory.

Entry-fragger xertioN was the key man during the run, leading his squad in playoff rating (1.39, 9 maps) and capping it off with a 15-5 CT side K-D on map three of the grand final that all but sealed the trophy.

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ZywOo takes ESL Pro League Season 19 MVP

He just missed out on the MVP to Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, but the Israeli still took the time to chat to HLTV about MOUZ's journey with Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin, being a young team of "grinders," and whether they can convert their sensational studio form into the biggest of events.

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Congrats, you are the EPL champions again. How do you feel right now?

I feel great. Finally, the work pays off. I feel like we have been working hard the last couple of months since Brollan joined, and it's great to see some success. I just hope it will translate to the big stages soon.

You won this final 3-0. Did you expect such dominance before the match?

We were really confident going into this game against Vitality. The last time we played them was in Cologne when we were a new team, and they destroyed us. And for me, it was really important to get revenge because I don't think I've ever beaten Spinx in an official, so I had that in the back of my head.

We were just really confident, we were favorites in our heads, at least. I was really excited after yesterday to know that we're playing Vitality. I knew it was going to be a good match and it turned out 3-0, so I'm happy.

You mentioned your rivalry with Spinx. flameZ is also on the team, and there are many Israelis across many very good teams. How strong is your scene right now?

First of all, it's never a rivalry between us. It's a friendly competition, I like to call it. We always have each other's back. I think that there are a lot of really good players there, our scene is amazing. We see HeavyGod growing up now, and we have many hidden players that can show up. We have a really deep scene for such a small country.

I'm just really proud of what we built and our personalities within the scene. If it's flameZ, Spinx, me, NertZ, or HeavyGod, I feel like we're all really nice people to be around. I love that this is my scene and I can hang out with them on my off day sometimes, everyone is chill.

To go back to the final, it felt like you attacked B a lot on Mirage. Was part of your game plan to avoid ZywOo?

Not at all, to be honest. I'm not sure exactly what went through siuhy's and sycrone's heads, but I think we were just looking at the demo and abusing what we saw as a weakness. I don't want to share too much about our preparation, of course, but I can say with confidence that it was not about ZywOo. Obviously, he's a great player, but I'm happy that he didn't play well against us. I think that shows a lot about how we play as a team. It was a really good game plan, and I'm just happy that it worked out.

This is your first title since EPL last time. Did you feel it was a long time coming?

It's been a while, of course. I think it was September when we won here in Malta, so it feels great. I'm really happy to win. It's just like any other tier-one title, to be honest. There are so many teams here that I feel like it's still a really good tournament to win. As I said before, I just want us to translate that into Katowice, Cologne, and Majors. It's possible because we play amazing CS at this moment, we've improved a lot since Brollan joined. I think that we are on a road to glory, and we just have to keep working hard.

You came close many times already this season, top four in Katowice, final in Chengdu. Do you feel that this win in Malta will help you overcome this hurdle of not winning a title on the big stages?

Yeah, definitely. It gives us a lot of confidence to beat so many good teams. On our road here, we beat G2 and Complexity, and now we beat Vitality in the final. All the games were also very convincing, I feel like. We're showing that our map pool is also very deep. We have won on Nuke and Inferno many times now, which were our weakest maps before. So honestly, I think that we don't really have a weakness anymore.

I think that we're a really strong team on all maps. It just gives us great confidence moving forward, to win just one more tournament before the end of the season. Maybe we can pick one more up here in the next tournament in Serbia, or even in Dallas. We're on the road to glory, and we just need to keep going.

Talking about this road to glory. It feels like we're near the end of the season, but not for you guys, because you're flying directly to Belgrade now, then to Dallas. Did the team set out to win one more title this season?

I don't know if the team set it up, we didn't talk about it yet. We were all focused on the task in Malta, we wanted to win this title, and I'm happy that we did. It's been a grind, we've been on the road for two weeks already, and now we're going straight to Serbia. We're going to go home for a couple of days after that and then back to Dallas.

It's the end of the season, and we all agree that we're going to push hard. That's why we also accepted the Serbia invite, we just want to play. We want to prove that we're good like we did here in Malta, and we like to say that we are grinders. We are a young team with energy, so we should be able to play [a lot of] tournaments. I'm just looking forward to playing the next two, and as you said, maybe we'll win, it's my goal.