siuhy: "Brollan is working on himself constantly and showing a good example to his teammates"

The Polish leader was happy with how the team and staff came together to make the gameplan against FaZe.

MOUZ got one over FaZe in the BLAST World Final opener, making it two in a row in head-to-head matchups after beating them at IEM Rio earlier this year.

"There were some small individual mistakes, like not dropping the smoke in the right area or doing something at a different timing," Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek says of the team's performance, "even though small mistakes didn't really matter in the end because we still played a better game."

This opening win puts the reds in the upper bracket final, where they will face Astralis for playoff seeding as the young team chase their first arena victory, which has proven elusive after victories at ESL Pro League and BB Dacha.

"They're a completely new team, not the same roster we played the last time," siuhy says of the matchup as the last time the two met was in 2023 when Astralis had a different core. "Hopefully, we're all going to be fit to play."

---

A 2-0 victory to start the tournament. After losing so many matches to FaZe, you've now beaten them twice in a row. Are you happy with this performance?

I'm happy with the team performance, for sure. It's not about how many we can win against and how many we can lose against them. What matters is when you win against a team like that. Obviously, you meet them in finals, that's the most important win. So that's what we're going to be looking at. Right now, the status of our results between these two teams doesn't matter to us.

Both maps were very close; the first one went to overtime, and the second one came very close to going to overtime as well. Can you walk me through the series and your game plan?

First of all, I think we made a really good game plan. The whole team, the coach and Xyp9x as well, we were all part of it. We made a really good game plan that we were really confident in. We struggled a little bit throughout the series, it felt like it was just another first game for us in the tournament where we were a little bit shaky.

There were some small individual mistakes, like not dropping the smoke in the right area or doing something at a different timing. Just very small things. But I'm really happy we were on top of it, even though small mistakes didn't really matter in the end because we still played a better game.

You had some very crucial rounds now towards the end of Nuke, but overall it was a fantastic performance from Brollan. He had a lot of multi-kills on Nuke, also a crucial 4K on Inferno in overtime. What can you say about his performance today?

He played amazingly throughout the series. Some tournaments ago he was pretty harsh on himself that he didn't perform well, but the way he talks to us and approaches things like this, he knows he's just going to be better. And that's what he's doing. He's working on himself constantly and showing a good example to his teammates.

On Inferno, there was a point on the map where the coach took a timeout and he said something to Brollan. That round, Brollan went and did a 4K. I'm not sure exactly what he said to him, but, hopefully he says it more often to him and the other players. But he had an amazing series, Inferno, on Nuke, a lot of close rounds as well where he was on top. It's good to have players shining when they need to.

You're now going to take on Astralis, a team you haven't faced this year. The last time you faced them was at CAC. What expectations do you have for this matchup? It's almost a completely new team compared to last time.

They're a completely new team, not the same roster we played the last time. They just won against NAVI and showed a good performance. You never know if it was Astralis that were strong or NAVI that were weak. We will play them, we will do our preparation as always. Hopefully, we're all going to be fit to play.

This tournament comes at a crucial stage of the season, between Rio and the RMRs and the Major. Some teams have different expectations coming into this one. What sort of expectations did you set heading into this event? As you said in Rio, you revamped your playbook not too long ago, so I guess that getting more matches is very important.

We set ourselves a goal before Rio that we had to rework a lot of stuff and we want to end it on a very high note towards the end of the year. And that's exactly what we're doing.

We did a lot of work before Rio and all that work is now being shown on the server throughout these games. So we're just going to push through until the end of the year and perform as best as we can in each tournament.

With NAVI maybe taking their foot off the gas a little bit before this tournament, Vitality having a stand-in and Spirit and G2 still looking a little bit shaky, do you think that this may be a good chance for you guys to get that big arena trophy that you are looking for?

Possibly it's an advantage for us, that maybe other teams are weaker. But it doesn't really matter because any game can be different. In one game, they can play really badly, and in another game, one round can happen, and suddenly, they've built a lot of confidence through that. So we're not going to underestimate anyone. We're going to play like we know we can play, and we're going to prepare like we can.

Looking ahead to the RMR and the Major, what plan have you come up with to make sure that you'll be in the best possible shape for those tournaments?

Regeneration is going to be a very important part of the last month and a half of the year. Even starting now, you come back home from BLAST and you have like three days off. Not even three days off, but three days at home where you need to do your best to regenerate.

We're going to obviously have a very important bootcamp coming into the RMR. Also, we're traveling across the sea, so it's very demanding. It's going to be very demanding towards the end of the year. So regeneration is going to be the most important thing.