



With another day of the online league behind us, we will be looking into yet another EU game. Taking a look at the week so far, Astralis, BIG, and Natus Vincere are topping the EU leaderboard while Ghost, Renegades, and now NRG are at the top in NA ahead of their games for Thursday night. Fridays game of the day will be between BIG and mousesports, two of the better teams in the league so far. BIG are looking to keep their top three spot while mousesports are trying to fight their way into the green, currently just short of being in the top 7. These are two very competitive teams and should be incredibly fun to watch.





BIG vs mousesports

This is one of mousesports first games with Martin 'STYKO' Styk back on the roster. Their two previous sets ending as 1-1’s against OpTic in ECS and Natus Vincere in EPL. It was pretty obvious that Janusz 'Snax' Pogorzelski did not have what it takes to fill in the extremely supportive role that STYKO left behind, and we should see both Robin 'ropz' Kool and Tomáš 'oskar' Šťastný recent dips in form fade away. As for BIG, they are still proving to be a very competitive team both on and offline and will be looking to continue that here against Mouz. BIG are currently 8-6, going 1-1 in almost every single series they've played this season of pro league. They have been able to take maps against Astralis, North, and FaZe, three of hardest opponents in the EU. However their inability to take both maps from opponents like HellRaisers and ex-SpaceSoldiers is a tad bit concerning for a team of their level. Going back to mouz, they are currently 6-4 leaving them in 8th place. They started out the season strong with two 2-0’s against HellRaisers and G2 but Astralis quickly put a stop to that. Both teams have faced relatively the same level of competition so far, the only real difference being that BIG was able to take a map from Astralis while Mouz was not. Given their current forms, I doubt we see either team take both maps. Especially with Dust2 and Inferno being played.









Inferno

The first map is one that mouz have had quite a lot of success on this year, especially when styko was previously on the team and I doubt we see that change here. BIG are not very fond of the map, which has shown with their recent online games so Mouz should be looking to add another victory on Inferno to their name. The EU team is currently 17-11 with styko apart of the roster this year, coming fresh off of a win against Natus Vincere but even more shockingly a loss against OpTic. Their game yesterday was horrendous, giving up a 4-11 lead and grabbing just one round in the second half. It was the complete opposite of what we saw them do against Navi just a day before. I would say their loss comes from OpTic simply being good on the map, the team is 7-1 for the month after all, but that just wasn't the case yesterday. It was like mouz had completely given up on the game after losing the pistol round. Luckily their next match on Inferno is against a team that rarely wins the map, or plays it for that matter. BIG are 9-10 for the year with just one win in the last three months. This is somehow the map that they beat Astralis on, but then proceeded to get destroyed by OpTic (16-2) and ex-SpaceSoldiers (16-6). The team does boast much better online results than offline, but that isn't enough to convince me they can take down mouz. Especially since most of their online games have been against T2 teams, their Astralis win seems a lot like a fluke. At the end of the day, I am fairly confident in mouzes abilities on the map. Their loss to OpTic of course raises some concern but they should've had more than enough time to discuss and go over their mistakes heading into this game.









Dust2

Almost half of BIG’s wins have come from this map so far this season, and they will be looking to add another victory to that list with today's game against Mouz. They are 10-4 on Dust2 this year, and are 3-0 for the month. Obviously beating ex-SpaceSoldiers, AGO, and HellRaisers isn't the most impressive thing in the world but they have proven to be consistent on the map nonetheless. Outside of the past month, they have had wins against Natus Vincere, FaZe, and even Liquid. With a 71 round win % as well as a 64% success rate on pistol rounds, It is very clear that BIG love playing Dust2 and have spent a lot of time integrating it into their map pool. However Mouz have definitely proven that they can play Dust2 as well. Without STYKO on the team mouz have managed to grab six wins and only three losses, they have only played one Dust2 match with their support player back and it was a loss against Natus Vincere. Not too surprising seeing as the third best team in the world are currently 5-0 in the past two months on the map. Outside of their 16-0 against North, a majority of their games have been a bit too close for comfort. Mouz have a mere 39% pistol success rate and a 57 round win percentage on Dust2, something that BIG will be more than happy to capitalize off of. Sure the economy of pistol rounds has changed, so far we have seen teams able to fully buy by round three, but that doesn't change the fact that BIG gain a lot of their momentum off of their pistol round wins. Not to mention the fact that almost all of mouzes wins have been off of comebacks, halves that ended with them down by 5+ rounds. Something that BIG will not be so willing to let slide and should be more than prepared to shut down.