The MongolZ have earnt our trust - but now they're testing it

Look, I don’t know what a ‘tikuak’ or a ‘DarkMeister’ is, but it sounds pretty worrying.

I would wager that probably 100% of you reading this article don’t know these guys at all, either. If it’s less than 100%, either someone at The MongolZ is reading this or you’re lying, I think. Nobody is watching The MongolZ Academy without a horrendous gambling addiction, nor Chinggis Warriors.

The MongolZ needed two players, and they’ve promoted from within for one and signed from their rivals for another.. With international teams, sometimes this is how it goes - and in fairness, from the outset, tikuak looks like he was way too good for the tier of play he was playing in.

He’s a bit of a hybrid star, but looks more like mzinho than cobrazera in the limited data we have. I’m not going to lie to you and say “big number > small number ergo tikuak is better” because that’s not entirely true - but not entirely false either. Chinggis Warriors have a much lower sample size and against much weaker opposition which works against him, but tikuak looks both in the data and by the eye, too good for domestic play in Asia.

He’s going to slot straight into one of those star roles, and there’s a decent chance he’s at least as good if not better than cobrazera.

Besides, The MongolZ have shocked us plenty of times before. When they first hit tier one, and cut ANNIHILATION for 910, who quickly went from out of his depth to one of the best AWPers in the world - that was a shock to us, if not them. Bringing in a 16 year old mzinho was a masterstroke. The Senzu benching and getting cobrazera, somehow without really losing a beat.

These guys have earned our trust. maaRaa is a superb coach who can spot talent and platform it expertly, and he’s proven his worth time and time again even when their moves have surprised us all.

But the real test of how good his talent spotting is will be DarkMeister, whom he clearly has a vision for that nobody else has seen yet, because the guy has seven maps against real opposition.

He’s played three series for The MongolZ Academy and lost all three, with only one map win, and not really stood out in any of the losses. He seems to be a bit of a more passive player, but we’re working with seven maps of data here. We have literally no idea how good he is, so we have no choice but to put blind faith in maaRaa again.

The MongolZ have rarely made the wrong choice - hasteka was pretty awful, but he was a stop-gap IGL - so they have some credit in the bank with us. This is a massive aura gamble, though. This guy is completely untested, so it’s either absolutely genius or a ‘what on Earth are you doing?’ moment.

It’s also possible they couldn’t find or afford anyone else. But we choose to accept the version where they’re going for the hail Mary.

One thing that is possible, and perhaps could be more fruitful, is having DarkMeister be the full support player and giving Techno4k and/or bLitz more space. We prefer Techno, as bLitz actually does get more autonomy than most IGLs and doesn’t do loads with it (he’s one of the more selfish IGLs in world CS), and Techno has incredible mechanics (at least to the eye - the data isn’t a massive fan) despite getting screwed over when it comes to resources).

However, there are a litany of examples throughout the history of pro CS as to why this idea can railroad someone’s career quicker than getting caught checking out their ‘AWP’ on camera.

Grim on Liquid had his career set back years by being put into horrible roles in his first time in tier one, and he was at least experienced. If DarkMeister isn’t ready AND has horrible roles, he’s going to get absolutely steamrollered. This, from the outside, looks like a kye on FURIA situation.

But - again - we have to trust them. They know the player better than we do, and they don’t make many mistakes.

Maybe DarkMeister will be the star rifler, or maybe he’ll be the passive star and tikuak will be given total freedom. Maybe DarkMeister is just the support guy on the Academy team (again, way too little data to draw any conclusions) and they have just picked a guy who can do the horrible stuff on short notice. Maybe maaRaa just likes the guy.

Whatever we’re about to see, we’re not expecting. We just know that they’ll figure it out way before anyone else does.