After being considered a joke for many years, Mousesports nowadays is, arguably, the best team in the world now. Their journey was filled with a lot of downs and on occasions glimmers of hope. So what happen?

Let’s review Mousesports’ rise to frame, one of the oldest organizations in the Counter-Strike esports scene.

NiKo Leaves For The Best

You would never expect to see the likes of a team like Mousesports amongst the best teams in the world. Even when they decided to quit the idea of being a full German roster to go fully international back in 2015.

After numerous roster changes during the years, the team acquired Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač. Considered by much a rough gem, the Bosnian player turned Mousesports in NiKosports during his time playing for the red team.

His skill were second to and every match they won he would usually be the MVP. During the last months of 2016 however, things were going down hill for the team. The only map which they could present a threat was Dust2 and one could see that slowly, the team was being ruined.

NiKo’s final run with Mousesports was at the DreamHack Masters Las Vegas 2017. They faced early elimination by Virtus.Pro and didn’t make the playoffs. NiKo then signed with FaZe Clan and Mousesports future looked uncertain.

Ropz Brings Hopes

NiKo leaving left the team broken and they needed to find a replacement. Mousesports set their sights on ‘ropz’, a star in the FPL circuit where up and coming talents invest their time in the hope to impress.

Ropz first appearance with the Mousesports brand in a LAN event during DreamHack Open Tours. His addition however, wasn’t the complete solution.

During the first semester of 2017, Mousesports with ropz remained a low key team. His supportive role helped but the team didn’t have the firepower they needed.

Ropz brought hope of a brighter future.

Only one roster change wouldn’t solve Mousesports problems after NiKo, this was clear. But with ropz, they created a great base to support talents that would come later.

Spanish ‘IoWel’ and the German ‘denis’ last run with Mousesports was at the PGL Krakow 2017. The team once again couldn’t get a Legend spot there and the search for new players began during the player break that followed Krakow.

Rocky Restart

After Krakow, Mousesports purchased ‘STYKO’ from HellRaisers and ‘suNNy’ from PENTA wearing the red t-shirt at DreamHack Masters Malmo 2017.

The team were destroyed. Even with Mousesports’ ‘oskar’ that had a rating at 0.98 in HLTV Rating 2.0.

Tables soon turned . ‘ChrisJ’, Mousesports in-game leader get the team down. Their next event in September, one week later, we saw a completely different performance from Mousesports.

ESG Tours Mykonos had SK as the favorites but it was Mousesports lifting the trophy in the end. When asked: Why the difference in performance between Mykonos and Malmo?, ‘STYKO’ explained in his interview:

“We just simply didn’t have enough preparation, I would say, it’s an obvious excuse, but it’s true when you have like two hours played in a new position that you have to play against a team that has been established for almost two years like SK, FaZe, Gambit, or whoever.”

A Temporary Downfall

After ESG, Mousesports failed to impress once again. The team won ROG Masters 2017 where GAMBIT were also contender for the title. They were eliminated from ELEAGUE Premier 2017 and couldn’t qualify for EPICENTER nor ESL Pro League Season 6 Finals.

October and December of 2017 – Mousesports was the synonym of inconsistency. Fighting head-to-head with FaZe in ECS Season 4 Finals and weeks before, losing to EnVyUs.

On the main stage, they faced the same problems. Although, they managed to advance for the first time to the last stage of the Major. This was mentioned as an objective for the team and gave them the Legend status for the upcoming Major that will be happening in September.

Rumors post-Major

After Boston 2018, there was a quick break where teams entered in a player transference window. Mousesports was rumored to pick up the Swede ‘Dennis’, ex player from FNATIC and GODSENT.

He supposedly would be replacing ‘STYKO’ who was underperforming given the hype built around him when he got signed in September of the last year.

The rumors were misleading the transfer window went by without any changes at all for the team.

Rising Stars

An unanticipated win at the StarSeries StarLadder i-League Season IV brought Mousesports back to the top again.

Predicted favorites to win were Cloud9, Liquid, SK, or FaZe. They beat SK, Liquid, Cloud9, G2 and Virtus.Pro in Bo3 to take the trophy. And Mousesports was hotter than ever.

Going on to claim their second trophy since the start of the year, they beat Virtus.pro 2-1 in the grand final of the V4 Future Sports Festival.

Then, for the first time in the history of Mousesports’ roster , the team took the deserved second place at HLTV World Ranking this week, just behind FaZe Clan.

What makes Mousesports so good?

It’s impossible to pin point a single factor for the rise of Mousesports.

Their map pool is very versatile, besides Cache, which they will always ban, there isn’t a map that mousesports can’t play. They have the edge in Nuke and Mirage especially, were ‘oskar’ and ‘ChrisJ’ shine, respectively.

Another factor is their individual consistency achieved over the last few months. Other than ‘oskar’, they don’t have another player who is risky and putting out flashy plays. Instead, they play structured, covering each other and exploiting their opponent’s weaknesses.

Ropz is the perfect example of this. Having a rating of 1.08 right now, he can clutch and turn the match when his team needs, he is reliable and so is suNNy. ChrisJ, the leader, also provides some enforcement when they need it, especially on Mirage.

We can also point out their players ability to stay focused and calm when things go south. SuNNy himself described it in an interview at Kiev:

“I mean, when we were down 10-0, the TeamSpeak atmosphere was pretty stressed and we started to question ourselves, like “WTF are we doing?”… but me, Robin, Tommy and also Martin, we are really calm guys, so when stuff like this happens we just tell the rest of the guys that everything is ok, that we need to keep playing, take a few rounds and we can make the comeback even from 0-15. Some of us were stressing there, but I think we are all pretty good at resetting our minds.”

The Best Team in the World Right Now

It’s not an easy task claiming the ‘Best CS:GO team in the world’ title. Mousesports may grab this spot in the upcoming weeks in the HLTV Rankings.

SK Gaming just got ‘Stewie2K’ who shown in his first games that it will take some time to adapt. FaZe also had to make changes, temporarily replacing ‘olofmeister’ with ‘Xizt’, previous in-game leader from NiP.

Right now, the fight for first place isn’t between SK, FaZe and Astralis. Instead, it’s Mousesports, FNATIC and then, maybe, FaZe, fighting head-to-head.

However, their first place will be more thanks to FaZe losing points than their own merit. But they can solidify their first place with the upcoming premier event in Marseille.

at this moment. Mousesports, however may claim this place during the upcoming two weeks in the HLTV Rankings.

The situation for the contenders isn’t easy. SK Gaming just got ‘Stewie2K’ who shown in his first games that it will take some time to adapt. FaZe also had to do changes, temporarily replacing ‘olofmeister’ with ‘Xizt’, previous in-game leader from NiP.

Right now, the fight for first place isn’t between SK, FaZe and Astralis. Instead, is Mousesports, FNATIC and then, maybe, FaZe, fighting head-to-head.

However, their first place will be more thanks to FaZe losing points than for their own merit. But they can solidify their first place with the upcoming premier event in Marseille.

DHM Marseille fight between Mousesports and FNATIC

All eyes are on Marseille which starts in two weeks. Featuring, all teams in the top 10, it’s likely to be an amazing showdown.

So far DreamHack still has to provide information about groups and format, but if we can expect the same from the last DreamHack Masters event, we will be having a group stage with BO1 and BO3 and then single elimination format with BO3 for the playoffs.

Decent format, so no excuses here. What everyone should be looking out for is a possible battle between Mousesports and Fnatic in the playoffs. This will be the high point of the event especially if it happens as the grand finals.

Both teams are playing an overwhelmingly good style of Counter-Strike of late. While mouz relies on individual performances from ‘oskar’ and ‘suNNy’ and having ‘STYKO’ and ‘ropz’ providing the backbones for those two. FNATIC focus on a tactical style implemented by ‘Golden’ with ‘Flusha’ and ‘KRIMZ’ bringing the firepower to run his strategies.

Currently, Mouz and FNATIC hold second and third place respectively in the HLTV World Ranking. We believe that the trophy of Marseille will be handed to one of those two teams who will then take the first place in the ranking without letting doubts between fans.

So, will Mousesports take the prize and trophy at Marseille or will be the definitive resurrection of FNATIC? Maybe an unexpected contender? What’s your opinion? Let us know! We will be providing detailed analysis and previews of the matches of every event here!