The tragedy-stricken mousesports team had some excellent results in the first part of the year and their star player Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer was the driving force behind the success. That is reflected in our Top 20 players of 2010 list as he takes the 15th position.

Basic information

Player: Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer
Team: mousesports
Age: 24

Team achievements in 2010:

1st - IEM4 European Championship Finals, EPS Germany 16, EPS Germany 17
2nd - Arbalet Cup Dallas

Stats from major LAN tournaments in 2010:

Kills per round: 0.75
Deaths per round: 0.63
Rating: 1.12 (?)
Maps played: 43
MoM: 10 times top rated in a match
Best tounament: IEM4 European Championship Finals
Best map: de_inferno
Most notable stat: Top fragger at IEM4 Euro Championship Finals (296 kills)

Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer spent the entire year 2009 in Alternate and was in general considered the best German player for quite a while. He had won 3 MVP awards in the German ESL Pro Series as well as a Rookie of the Season award back in 2004. When Alternate's biggest rivals, mousesports announced in December of 2009 that they will sign him, their new lineup looked very fearsome and big things were expected from both Ausserdorfer and the team in 2010.

Dream start for mousesports

In January Ausserdorfer was about to have his debut for mousesports at the IEM4 European Championship Finals on their home turf in Brühl. It would turn out to be the best possible start for them, as they managed to finish at 1st place, defeating teams such as KerchNET (the current Na`Vi), SK Gaming and fnatic. Ausserdorfer's contribution to winning his first title with the new team was enormous, especially when it mattered most as he excelled in each of their clashes in the playoffs. Firstly, he was mousesports' best rated player in their two map-wins against KerchNET. Shortly after that, his most impressive performance took place on the second map of the semi-final against SK where he had a 30-11 score, making some incredible plays throughout the match. And in the end, he was also his team's best rated player in the very close final against fnatic. Ausserdorfer finished the event with a 1.11 rating (1.19 in the playoffs), he was his team's best player overall and he played great in big matches, so all that should be enough to support naming him the MVP of this event, even though the award was never given officially.

The next tournament for mousesports was IEM4 World Championship where they were now one of the main favorites. However, this time they were stopped by Na`Vi in the relegation stage of the playoffs after another very close encounter. Ausserdorfer was again one of the best players at the event with a 1.17 rating (5th best rated overall), with several impressive matches against big names such as mTw, EG and in their only map-win against Na`Vi.

In May they traveled abroad for the first time to take part in Arbalet Cup Europe in Stockholm, Sweden. They were stopped in the second group stage, staying behind fnatic and mTw, while Ausserdorfer once again performed well. He was his team's best rated player and was rated above 1.00 in 5 of their 6 matches.

In the meantime, Ausserdorfer represented Germany in ASUS European Nations Cup during the online stage where the team didn't make it through the group. Ausserdorfer was the 2nd best rated player from his nation with a 1.06 rating and several excellent performances along the way.

In June he was named the MVP of EPS Germany for the 4th time in his career. He excelled during the online stage of the 16th season as well as later on in the LAN finals when he helped the team win their 5th consecutive title, as he finished the event with an impressive 1.34 rating.

ESWC in France followed and mousesports were again stopped at the second group stage, this time behind mTw and Frag eXecutors. However, Ausserdorfer had an excellent 1.25 rating at the event, especially excelling in their 15-15 match against EG where he put up a 31-19 score.

Two weeks later the Germans traveled to United States to attend Arbalet Cup Dallas. After a shaky group stage, they stormed through the playoffs and to the final, where they were defeated by Na`Vi. Ausserdorfer didn't feature as prominently in their second biggest success of the year as he did in the biggest one, but he still had a good tournament individually with a 1.08 rating. His best performance was the one in their must-win group stage match versus Area51 when he had a 35-16 score, securing a win that brought them to the playoffs after a loss to Evil Geniuses earlier.

Upon their return to Europe, Ausserdorfer was unable to attend GameGune with his team due to work obligations and mousesports finished that event only as 7th-8th.

Tragic death of Antonio "cyx" Daniloski

As mousesports were about to take part in IEM5 Global Challenge Shanghai at the end of July, one of their team members, Antonio "cyx" Daniloski tragically lost his life in a car accident. That naturally made the rest of the team pull out, not only from that tournament, but also from the rest of the international events in 2010.

The team still took part in online leagues using their backup player Christian "Blizzard" Schmiel as 5th, winning another title in EPS Germany, their 6th in a row, while Ausserdorfer had another great season individually finishing with a 1.24 rating (4th best). They also took part in IEM5 European Championship finishing their group at second place behind Lions, but then defeating Playzone.fi in the relegation stage, which secured them a spot in Kiev for the Finals of that event. Ausserdorfer played very well in this tournament as well, having a 1.17 rating in the end.

Immediately became the star of the team

In 2010 Ausserdorfer won 1 international title, 2 titles in German EPS and got a 2nd place at Arbalet Dallas. As far as individual awards go, he was the unofficial MVP of IEM4 European Championship Finals and the official MVP of EPS Germany 16.

He also didn't have any bad tournaments, having a rating higher than 1.00 in each of the 5 major tournaments that he attended, as well as in every minor one. All that, plus playing well in some crucial matches for his team made him a part of our Top 20.

What to expect in 2011?

Ausserdorfer had been rumored to retire in late 2009 before joining mousesports, but now he has signed on for another year with the team even though his teammates Fatih "gob b" Dayik and Navid "Kapio" Javadi decided not to continue. The lineup for 2011 looks quite different compared to the previous one, but one thing is for sure, mousesports will need Ausserdorfer to keep his motivation up and perform at his best if they want to succeed internationally.

Recommended demos of roman in 2010:

If you want to check out some of his matches that were mentioned in this article, you can find links to those demos right here (special recommendation for the demo against SK at IEM4 Eu Finals):

Opponent	Map	Event	Score	Demo
KerchNET	nuke	IEM4 Eu Finals (Relegation, map 3)	24-16	POV
SK	dust2	IEM4 Eu Finals (Semi-final, map 2)	30-11	POV
fnatic	inferno	IEM4 Eu Finals (Final, map 2)	22-20	POV
my*	nuke	EPS Germany 16	25-7	POV
mTw	inferno	IEM4 World (Group stage)	32-17	POV
EG	inferno	IEM4 World (Group stage)	30-12	HLTV
Na`Vi	inferno	IEM4 World (Relegation, map 2)	27-16	HLTV
Spain	inferno	ASUS ENC 2010	25-8	HLTV
snook	tuscan	EPS Germany 16	21-12	POV
EG	tuscan	ESWC 2010 (Group stage #2)	31-19	POV
Area51	dust2	Arbalet Dallas (Group stage #2)	35-16	POV
Free Agents	inferno	IEM5 European Championship	21-7	HLTV
Cheap Times	dust2	IEM5 European Championship	23-12	HLTV

If you missed our previous article about Johan "face" Klasson, click here or if you want to see who else is on the list when it is updated, head over to our Introduction article here.

What do you think about the performance of Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer in 2010? Does he deserve a place in the Top 20? What was your biggest impression of him this year? Feel free to leave a comment on this topic and stay tuned to HLTV.org if you want to see what the rest of the Top 20 looks like, as we will bring you number 14 tomorrow.