DreamHack Stockholm will be the last international LAN before the FACEIT Major London gets underway. Because of that it is a critical tournament for all of the teams to use to warm up. Among the various participants the four teams I think everyone must watch at this event: FaZe, MIBR, Mouz, and Gambit.

FaZe

Roster:

Havard ‘rain’ Nygaard

Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen

Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac

Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovacs

Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer

FaZe have struggled throughout the summer season ever since olofmeister had to take time off for three months to deal with personal issues. In the interim they have had two standins: Richard ‘Xizt’ Landstrom and Jorgen ‘cromen’ Robertsen. In that time FaZe actually had a slew of amazing results considering their circumstances: Top 8 DreamHack Marseille, 1st IEM Sydney, Top 4 ECS Season 5, 1st EL Belo Horizonte, and Top 4 ESL One Cologne.

Soon after olofmeister came back for ELeague Premier 2018 where they dropped out in the group stages losing to Mouz and Fnatic. It wasn’t the return that people were hoping for, but there are some caveats that are worth mentioning. The first is that it had been a long time since the team had played with olofmeister so the comms and chemistry was likely off, despite the fact that olofmeister played well. They didn’t have much time to practise both in the practical way (like having a bootcamp) or their own way of going to a bunch of events.

So for me, I can forgive that one misstep as I think this performance was not typical for FaZe. When they usually lose, it’s in the semifinals or finals to some miraculous underdog. So Stockholm will be a heat check for FaZe. They will use it to get their practice and we can see how well they are clicking together as a unit in terms of their chemistry. Finally, the biggest factor will be NiKo. During the time when olofmeister was missing, NiKo stepped up his game to levels I hadn’t seen since his days on Mouz. His level was such that I’d say he was the clear second player behind s1mple and at moments he could match s1mple’s pace of consistently high peaks. If that NiKo shows up and this FaZe gets their teamwork back online and they figure out new things (whether that be tactics or a new map), we could see someone else challenge Astralis to win the Major.

MIBR

Roster:

Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo

Fernando ‘fer’ Alvarenga

Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David

Jacky ‘Stewie2K’ Yip

Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik

In terms of raw potential, this team should be a top four team in the world. You have one of, if not the greatest CS:GO leader of all time in FalleN. You have one of the generation of miracles in Coldzera. Fer proved himself to be an incredible superstar player in 2017 and in the earlier iterations of LG proved he could play a more limited role of he had to. Then you have Stewie2K and Tarik, two of the best players from the NA region.

However in terms of role balance, the mix of player doesn’t match the template of the best Brazilian lineups. It doesn’t have clear role players like Epitacio ‘TACO’ de Melo, Lincoln ‘fnx’ Lau, or Ricardo ‘boltz’ Prass. Instead you have a mix of highly aggressive skilled players that lean more towards a loose individualistic style of play.

At ELeague it felt like they were still playing too close to the old FalleN style of Counter-Strike. It’s a brilliant style of Counter-Strike, but I don’t believe it’s the right style for this set of players that he currently has. So at Stockholm, I want to see what kind of style they are playing and which players are going to be emphasized as stars. Personally, I’d like to see a mix of the CLoud9 puggy style that won the Boston Major and the initial Joao ‘felps’ Vasconcellos/fer aggressive style when felps first came into the SK lineup.

Perhaps the most important thing will be map pool. This team hasn’t been able to find a strong map pool to challenge the top teams in the world. With Janko ‘YNk’ Paunovic coming into the lineup as a coach, I want to see what changes he will end up making in terms of style, tactics, or cultural to the team.

It’s a good sign that they were able to convincingly win Zotac Cup Masters, but at the end of the day that was three series wins over lesser teams: Flash, MVP.PK, and Kinguin. For MIBR, Stockholm will be the real litmus test to see how they rank in the world. If this team can get rolling, there is a world where they could win the Major.

Mouz

Roster:

Chris ‘chrisJ’ de Jong

Tomas ‘oskar’ Stastny

Robin ‘ropz’ Kool

Miikka ‘suNny’ Kemppi

Janusz ‘Snax’ Pogorzelski

This is a new lineup as Mouz removed Martin ‘STYKO’ Styk from the team and brought on Snax to take his place. They have been to two events. At ESL One Cologne they bombed out of the tournament. At ELeague they were able to get to top four after a slug fest of games between them, FaZe, and Fnatic. They then got rinsed out by Astralis.

Even though one piece has changed, there are a lot of moving parts to the puzzle. In terms of raw individual skill, Snax is probably a “better” player than STYKO, but the question I have is if he is a better player at STYKO’s role than STYKO is. At the current time, I have to say he isn’t. STYKO was taking supportive roles and trying to enable his teammates. Perhaps the best way to describe this is that Snax is more likely to win aim duels than STYKO. However Snax is far more likely to take unnecessary fights relative to STYKO. Part of that could be because he is new to the team or it could just be how the team wants to run him.

Whatever the case, it feels like he is taking up more space than STYKO did. For instance you see him play popdog on Train, a position that was played by suNny in the previous iteration. It’s a strong fragging spot, especially for a player like suNny and so suNny now has to learn how to play ivy and find a style that suits him there. This also seems to have affected ropz’s play as he has to figure out his roles and spots again. Even in places like inferno where he’s played before, he has to figure out new chemistry with suNny for example.

The other big thing to note is the map pool of Mouz. Historically, their best map was Mirage, but they are losing it. It’s not because of any particular deficineces in their Mirage play, it’s just that the best teams in the world are better at it than they are. So they’ve tried to go to other maps like Train. However that’s been fairly lackluster and so like MIBR I think they are lost in the map pool.

While it’s still too early to say how this lineup is compared to the last, these are troubling signs. This roster still has potential though and I think it will become clear where they stand after Stockholm and the Major.

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