Just four months after adding Snax to their roster, Mousesports have gone back to Styko. The organization announced the same after months of poor performances and lack of results. They did win one tournament, the ESL One New York 2018, however, the decision to replace Snax was taken before that.

Recently Mousesports announced on their website that they will be adding Styko back to the active roster. The decision to bench Snax was taken after much deliberation and the lack of results played a crucial role in the same.

.@STYKOcsgo returns to the starting lineup of mousesports and will replace Snax with immediate effect. 👉 https://t.co/58EVWp3iJz pic.twitter.com/rYlvLSXPQ8 — mousesports (@mousesports) October 15, 2018

Why did Mousesports falter with Snax?

Despite a supposed upgrade in skill and experience, Mousesports did not have a similar type of result with the Polish player. Once considered to be the best player in the world, Snax’s performance has deteriorated over the years. However, his personal performance or its lack thereof can be also be attributed to the overall Virtus Pro decline in the past year.

Coming on a new team like Mousesports, a top class team nevertheless one would expect Mousesports to have better results. However, the composition of a team and its results often transcend the average skill level of a player. Various factors affect the overall results and the chemistry within the team.

Mousesports and Snax were a mismatch

While on paper, Snax makes an excellent addition to Mousesports, in reality, he was not a great fit. We cannot fault Mousesports for trying to improve their results, and it is equally commendable that the organisation decided to do the right thing by bringing Styko back.

Janusz Pogorzelski is just twenty-five years old. Yet he is a veteran in Counter-Strike having played at the top level for several years now. In 2016, he was undeniably the best player in the world. His ability to come out ahead in clutch situations clearly demonstrated the player’s thought process in such situations. He has a knack for dissecting the opponents and taking duels where he has an advantage against the opponent. In 2016, he would go on to win almost impossible clutch situations, clearly making a statement before fans and casters alike.

However, over the past few months, Snax has not had the best of performances. While his individual skill level has definitely seen a turn for the worse, his frags are no longer impact frags as they would be before.

His average rating has hovered around the 1.00 mark. However, the quality of opposition for most of these tournaments has not always been the best. While on Virtus Pro, the did not contend against the best teams in the world. Instead, they were struggling to find their feet in Tier two / three scene. When he moved onto Mousesports, we saw his performance further take a dip. The image above clearly shows how his individual performance was just not good enough when faced against other top teams.

Statement from Snax about his departure

Snax came out with a statement regarding his departure from the Mousesports team. He states that the Mousesports playstyle is not what he was looking for in a team. The Mouseports team required someone who can take a passive approach, plant bombs and use grenades effectively. However, after years of being the star player on Virtus Pro, it was evidently difficult for Snax to change his playstyle. At the same time, it was equally unacceptable to expect the four Mousesprtrs players to change their approach to the game. The mismatch between the two parties was evident and Snax laid down his views on the same.

He applauds Styko if he was able to play in such a situation. Snax felt that the Mousesports playstyle did not truly use his abilities and limited his playstyle. You can read the full statement here.

The team ran into communication problems

In addition to this, Mousesports also had several communication problems as soon as Snax joined the roster. Snax could not be a copy past replacement for Styko. The players needed to adjust to each other, both in terms of gameplay as well as communication. Somehow Mousesports was never able to adjust to the ‘new style’ of communication and playstyle to reach their peak performance. Several Mousesports players have come out on social media talking about the communication problems within the team.

Bored. Ask me anything — Tomáš Šťastný (@CSGOoskar) September 24, 2018

Communication is key to Counter-Strike, especially at the top level of Counter-Strike. The extra second of reflex time that a sound communication provides to the players is something that can change the outcome of the round. Mousesports obviously had communication problems within the team as we can see from ChrisJ’s statement below given to GamingEditorial.

Before we reached twice the semi-final with Snax which is obviously okay, but doing so bad at the major really hurt.. we didn’t expect, and I don’t think anybody expected us to go 0-3. Its been a bit a harder transition than we’ve expected, but now that we look back at it, it’s quite not logical because Snax played so long on VP, he spoke Polish for so long. It just takes some time to get used to English, and also to, not specifically new spots or anything, but he needs to react differently because our team always played a lot different than VP. So that took some time but I think we’re on the right way. ChrisJ

For now, Snax will be looking for a new team where he can find the right synergy and communication. And Mousesports will hope that they can replicate their former success with Styko once more.

Hope for a Better future with an old teammate

Mousesports has already withdrawn its name from the upcoming EPICENTER 2018 tournament. This decision provides a lot of space for the team to practice and form its playstyle with Styko back on the roster.

Styko shows improvement of late despite his statistics bound to be skewed due to the various team movements. His personal brand and skill was never really the breaking point for Mousesports roster. It was the team’s ability to communicate flawlessly and have an excellent synergy which facilitated the positive results.

Styko also spent a lot of time with the current players, they have a better understanding of each others movement across the map. With Snax, Mousesports often seemed to be in a fix as to their movement and out of sync with each other. The players often put forth amazing individual skill, but that is not enough to take the team to the next level. Their loss at Starseries definitely highlights the problems of a skill-based lineup.

The team was up 2-0 in the Group stage, but once they faced off against better skill teams such as Optic Gaming, ENCE and BIG gaming they were unable to close the game. Most of these games were extremely close matches. But it in such close games that a team’s communication becomes all the more important. Mouz’s inability to close out such close games definitely points to the players not being on the same page.

Styko will be a familiar face for the Mousesports roster, one they hope will help them achieve success once again. Mousespsorts will next be visible at IEM Chicago in early November.