torzsi: "They're still really good but Vitality aren't what they used to be in the last 7 months"

Time at home after EWC has given MOUZ "energy" and "creativity" ahead of their playoff run in London.

MOUZ enter BLAST Open London with their eyes on the trophy.

With Spirit and The MongolZ absent, and having broken their duck against Vitality, now is as good a time as any for Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás and company to win their first Big Event since PGL Cluj-Napoca in February.

The team have come close, with four grand final defeats since then, but have not quite found the perfect formula with Vitality's dominance and Spirit's Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets-fuelled Cologne masterclass.

Date	Matches
BLAST Open London 2025 Finals
05/09/2025	MOUZ 16:30 M80	Match
06/09/2025	Vitality 16:30 MOUZ	Match

As much as he wanted to stress that the team are only thinking about M80, torzsi knows the community expects a Vitality rematch in the semi-final.

MOUZ, whose nine-event long streak of top-four finishes ended at the Esports World Cup, have used their time off wisely. "Going home gave us a lot of energy again, a lot of creativity."

Let's see if London is where they put that to use.

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First of all, the bracket, what's your impression of M80 after that group stage?

The bracket looks interesting, let's say. M80 aren't a team we'd expect to play. Especially if you are a higher-tier team, you don't face this team often, so it will be an interesting match. I think they can bring some fire and the unexpected, maybe they can show how good they are. But we came here prepared and we're ready to go deep.

Then Vitality if you win that quarter-final, what's the feeling now you've beaten them already?

We are not focusing on that, first we have to face M80. But generally speaking, the feeling of playing Vitality is much better than before. Because we broke their run in Cologne, since then, they have not looked as sharp as they looked before. Of course they are still a really good team but they are not the Vitality they used to be in the last seven months. They also know that, and they are working to get better, so we would also look forward to that game but first we need to focus on the game in front of us.

You've had such a good year, but you're not quite getting the trophies yet. Does this feel like the best chance since Cluj for one?

I think Cologne, probably. Once we got to the final we really wanted that trophy and we didn't get it. Maybe this tournament yeah. We had a really long stretch in the last one and a half months, we were not at home a lot. Finally after EWC, we went home, we feel a bit refreshed you know, it was nice to spend a bit of time at home.

We came here with a bit more creativity and confidence than before EWC, because we had so much time together and so much time away from home. It was getting a bit hard. That's why we also didn't play our best. Now, I feel like we're going to show a better MOUZ.

With the player break and everything, because you removed siuhy mid-season, was it a good opportunity to refresh the playbook and make it a bit more about Brollan and the team moving forward? Or were you able to fix that mid-season already?

Yeah, we definitely looked into our stratbook in the player break. But for the top-tier teams, who travel a lot, it's really important that you can change your playbook while on the road.

For example, as MOUZ, we played three events back-to-back-to-back, and it's hard to find practice all the time and find new strats. It's also the players' responsibility to find stuff, add stuff, and add moves just personally. I wouldn't say there was a lot of time to figure stuff out on our playbook but we are developing it day by day.

But does it feel like Brollan has been able to put his stamp on the team now, after eight or so months as IGL? How much of the playbook is Brollan's ideas vs siuhy's ideas, now?

Definitely it's Brollan's ideas, and also sycrone's, our coach. I wouldn't say we play a lot of siuhy's ideas, everything we have is either the coach or Brollan. We are in a really good spot on that, and also I think Brollan has shown a lot of good improvements. There are a lot of improvements he can do, it's a new role for him, and we are trying to improve him on that side as well. But he's controlling the team really well.

Ancient was one of the rare maps you struggled a bit on at the start of the season, but then you beat G2 online here. Did you put much focus into it?

I wouldn't say we put much focus on that map. If you look at it objectively, in our last four games we lost three of them, you are correct, but three times we lost to Spirit and three times we lost 13-11, 13-11, 16-14, so all of the games were really close. We were aware of this, that we were playing really close games, but we couldn't win them.

But as a team we didn't feel it was a bad map for us because before we were winning a lot of maps on Ancient. Of course if you lose games, your confidence will drop, so it was really nice to win versus G2. It's a bit unfortunate, we were up 11-1 and we didn't close it out instantly, but it gave us a bit of confidence.

Does that make it a bit of a secret weapon? If a team is checking quickly, you're 1-6 on it, but internally you're like, 'We're really good on this map.'

Yeah, I would say it is you know. As you say, the teams can look and see we have a 15% win-rate or whatever, but if you look at the games they were all close versus Spirit. If teams look closer, they'll see we're a really good Ancient team.

Finally on the tournament overall, how confident are you feeling going into this?

We are feeling really confident. As I said, going home gave us a lot of energy again, a lot of creativity, it was nice to spend some time away from each other and have a little bit of time off. We also had to play online for this tournament, so we didn't have too much, but I feel like we are pretty confident. We just need to get in the groove, play individually tonight and get ready for tomorrow. We will be in a good spot.

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