xertioN on MOUZ: “We always want to beat Team Vitality, even if they’re not at full strength.”

We didn’t leave the arena until close to 10 p.m. yesterday, so it was pretty tough to fully prepare for the third-place match. The coaches did most of the work; they had to put in long hours and sacrifice sleep for this, for which I’m immensely grateful. In matches like these, creativity, quick reactions to the opponent’s moves, and the ability to rapidly devise countermeasures are crucial.

Most teams play noticeably worse in these matches. That’s exactly why MOUZ often emerges victorious from such matchups. People can say whatever they want, but winning the third-place match is still important to us. We always want to beat Team Vitality, even if they’re not at full strength. And when apEX returns to the roster, we’ll have a reason to look forward to the chance to prove ourselves stronger once again. It’s always nice to end a tournament run with a win and on a high note.

We’re not entirely sure how to characterize the team’s form after this event. We suffered a crushing defeat against Team Liquid, where we played absolutely horribly, but aside from that, every match provided a lot of valuable experience. Of course, everyone is upset that we lost to FURIA in the playoffs—it’s a disappointing result—but we have a lot to be proud of, and we can see the progress we’ve made. We’re happy to finish the tournament in third place; we’re satisfied with our performance. Now we just need to learn from this, maintain the confidence we gained from our victories over strong opponents, and put it all to use at the next event.