Mousesports was on fire immediately following the ELEAGUE Boston Major. The team was playing like a top-three team with victories at StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 4 and V4 Future Sports Festival. Heading into DreamHack Marseille, the team was one of the favorites to win with most of the rosters in flux.





Astralis was having none of it and took the DreamHack trophy while quickly cementing itself as the best team in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.





We slowly saw a steady decline by mousesports as Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný took a leave of absence and Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert was used as a stand-in . Despite a strong showing at ESL One Belo Horizonte, the team was looking for changes.





Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski joined mousesports June 27 replacing Martin "STYKO" Styk on the roster. The team had a lack of practice at ESL One Cologne with Snax and looked the part. Now, after having a few weeks to prepare, mousesports looks like a force to be reckoned with after a 2-1 victory over FaZe Clan at the ELEAGUE Premier 2018.





DBLTAP's Nathan Fusco talked with Robin "ropz" Kool over the phone after the victory.

We had to go to the full length, but in the end, we had the upper hand vs. @FaZeClan #vamouz #goRED #ELEAGUE pic.twitter.com/p6qzzB6kPZ — mouz @ ELEAGUE Premier  (@mousesports) July 23, 2018

Nathan Fusco: What's it like to now have Snax on the team? Did you ever imagine playing with such a legendary player from the CS:GO scene?





Robin "ropz" Kool: "Yeah, definitely, I would agree that he had that legend status. He was one of the best players in the world at one point, but it was kinda rough at the beginning. We went to Cologne with no practice. But before ELEAGUE, we had a lot of practice, eight to 10 hours every day. We practiced our defaults and starts. We were pretty confident with our practice and with adding Snax and it showed."





NF: For a short time after the [ELEAGUE Boston] Major, you guys were playing like a top-three team in the world. Then, after Marseille, you guys slowly started to falter. What happened to the team during that time?





RK: "Well, we had like our two best maps, Dust II and Mirage and at one point we were even playing Nuke, but people started playing that. And then we stopped playing Mirage. We were at the top level for a few months. But other than Nuke and Mirage, we struggled to beat the best teams on other maps. And that was what caused us to fall. People kept getting better on Mirage and in the end, we had no maps we felt comfortable on."





NF: What it's like now having a year plus under your belt of playing competitive CS:GO? Do you feel more like a veteran player and not like the new guy on the team?





RK: "I feel like the basics of the team are always the same. We do the same stuff all the time. The way we play, I'm really used to that. I know what my teammates are doing all the time and I can just adjust all the time. That really helps my game because I know where my teammates are on the map. Now that I've ben on this team for more than a year now, I'm just used to it. It just shows that I'm getting more confident and yeah, at the beginning I was nervous, but now I just make plays. If we are playing against a top team, it's just like any other match. And I just go into the match trying to win."

Make sure to tune in on Monday at 2 p.m. ET across Twitch.tv/eleaguetv, live.eleague.com or live.bleacherreport.com for more ELEAGUE action. Team Liquid faces off against Astralis followed by a match between Natus Vincere and mousesports.





The interview was edited for clarity

Photo courtesy of Adela Sznajder/DreamHack