Jimpphat: "We are not the same group stage merchants that we used to be"

"It's the first game on stage. It always gives confidence, especially if you beat a good team as we did," the Finn said after MOUZ eliminated the reigning Major champions.

MOUZ tallied their third straight win over Spirit in 2025 to send the reigning Major champions packing early in the quarter-finals of the BLAST.tv Austin Major, falling short of victory in a quadruple overtime Mirage thriller but managing to reverse-sweep victory with wins on Dust2 and Nuke.

The Russian side had romped through Stage 3 with an unbeaten 3-0 record, in stark contrast to MOUZ's labored campaign that saw them barely claw back from 0-2 down to clinch a playoff berth.

"If you go through the group 3-0, you don't face any obstacles," Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo told HLTV after the match.

"You don't know what you should work on, what problems you should fix. [...] We didn't have so much time to prepare, but we knew that we had so much stuff to fix because we played so badly in the group stage compared to Spirit."

The Finn also spoke about MOUZ's seven lost clutches on Mirage, where he says "the nerves really got to us and we choked completely," and touched on MOUZ's next match against the winner of Natus Vincere vs. Vitality.

Listen to the interview here.

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Congrats, a bit of a thriller series, especially at the start. Mirage had a bunch of overtimes, you ended up on the losing end of a bunch of clutches, but you got there in the end. Tell me how you're feeling after that.

It feels crazy, you know, because the last time we did an interview was after the Liquid game, and this was a really similar game, to be honest. In the Liquid game, maybe we should have lost, but this Mirage we should have won nine out of ten times and now it what happened was the one out of ten times that we lost it, which is really sad.

But even though we lost it, I'm just super happy that we still won the last two maps, and especially Dust2 because they're really good on that map. It's a not-so-good map for us, but we are getting there. And yeah, I'm just super happy.

Do you think how difficult your run was in the group stage helped you claw back into some of these rounds in the series?

Yeah, for sure. It's something that we also talked about, but in some way, it's a bit bad. If you go through the group 3-0, you don't face any obstacles. You don't know what you should work on, what problems you should fix. Of course, you can be the best of the best and have no problems at all, but that's not the case most of the time.

And also for us, we didn't have so much time to prepare, but we knew that we had so much stuff to fix because we played so badly in the group stage compared to Spirit, they went 3-0, a pretty clean run from them. So for us, it turned out to be pretty good that we went 3-2 and we could fix a lot of our mistakes that we had.

On Mirage, you lost seven clutches, the first one was at 12-12 but then you lost six more clutches in overtime alone. Tell me what it was like on the losing end of those. Was there frustration setting in and what did you do to reset from that going into Dust2?

Most of the clutch situations just came down to nerves to be honest, and I admit, we choked the clutches a lot. Of course, we shouldn't have, but we did lose them which is really sad but in a normal situation I don't think it would have happened.

In this case, the nerves really got to us and we choked completely, at least in the clutch situations. But we still kept pushing each other forward, we've got each others backs no matter what, and that's something we are really good in MOUZ. We can always come back from tough situations because everyone is supporting each other and that's what we tried on Mirage as well, but sadly it didn't go our way in the end.

It was a tough map for torzsi on Dust2 and then a tough one for Brollan on Nuke, all while you tried to push through the series against the star power of Spirit. Can you tell me what it was like working with the team to try and ignore that and trying to push past some of those deflated performances?

We are past the point where people get affected by individual stats. Of course, if you play really badly, your confidence will go away. It's natural. But we really help each other and we are saying 'Fuck it, it doesn't matter. Come on, we're still playing. It's a team game,' and stuff like this.

Everyone has been there, where they have bad games in a big game. I've been there and everyone else has been there, so we just keep being nice to each other. We are not frustrated about somebody playing badly because it can happen. We just keep pushing forward.

This is your third win over Spirit this year. It must feel good, especially eliminating them as the reigning Major champions. How was that for you?

It feels really good. Before we played the game, as I said, they looked really dominant in the group stage, they were really destroying teams and as you said, they were the last Major champions. So in my head, at least, it gives a little bit of aura for them because it's the Major again.

I'm just super happy that we won against Spirit, they are a good team, but I think for us the biggest obstacle, or the biggest goal, is to beat Vitality, which would be the next game if they beat NAVI. That's something we really want to do. And then we will see about the grand final, we will take it as it is. But now we need to relax a little bit and put our eyes on this Vitality-NAVI game, whichever it will be, and deal with it.

And just on that note, you had that rough run in the group stage and now this is a big win. You have that potential Vitality-NAVI matchup. Do you feel more confident now after this kind of a win in the arena?

Yeah, for sure. It just gives us confidence that we can actually play well, like even though we are not the same group stage merchants that we used to be, that people called us, but it's still the first game on stage. It always gives confidence, especially if you beat a good team as we did, so we will do our best with whichever team it will be, we will do our usual thing, and I hope that we will not choke like on Mirage.