MOUZ in pole position for ESL Pro League S23 - Preview

This looks like either MOUZ or Spirit’s tournament to lose - and yet we don’t feel fully comfortable in backing either of them.

With eight team playoffs the jeopardy is always higher, and taking the field vs any individual team becomes juicier, so it’s only natural to be less convinced by the top dogs. And yet, were it Vitality at this event, we wouldn’t be less convinced - these teams are just flawed.

That’s, in some ways, far more interesting.

It’s easier to see a path for someone like FUT, NAVI or The MongolZ to win the event because you can genuinely foresee MOUZ losing a semi-final they ‘should’ be winning, or Spirit getting outthought by HooXi or Aleksib. That alone makes this weekend exciting.

Starting with The MongolZ and NAVI.

10AM CEST, starting off the weekend early on a Friday morning (we’ve all been there), is the aforementioned MongolZ vs NAVI. It’s a game we’ve seen a few times over the last half a year or so, with NAVI generally getting the better of Asia’s greatest ever team, and with maaRaa not making it to Stockholm it seems even less likely for this to be a good day for Mongolia.

NAVI, though, are less than infallible, and losses to Legacy and G2 - the latter of which didn’t even make it out of the group stage - should give The MongolZ hope. They had no issue dispatching of Aurora, who have been a bit of a problem for everyone else, and 3DMAX were beaten in three, and they’d been tough for a few teams.

Mind you, NAVI beat them quite easily as well.

MongolZ did beat them last time out in Cluj-Napoca, and that was only a few weeks ago, and so despite NAVI’s record against them, signs do point to a win. makazze had an excellent stage two, but there’s little evidence that this is his true level and he’ll carry it on through the playoffs.

We’re nudging towards The MongolZ in this one, but any result would make sense.

Legacy vs Aurora is one that catches the eye as both are unlikely to have a better chance at a semi-final for a while, but both are deservedly in this playoffs. Legacy have maybe been the biggest story (at least positive one) from this event, and seem to be back in their purple patch of last year. Maybe they’re simply just quite good?

Aurora have also been much better ever since soulfly was added, which few saw coming, and this is the best chance they’ll have to make a final, probably all year, so it’s a shot they have to take. Aurora actually won the match-up in Stage 2, and also denied Legacy a trophy in Bucharest last year,

History would suggest an Aurora win, and we tend to agree. Aurora might not be brilliant on stage, but Legacy are much less tested and Aurora have already proven they can handle it against Legacy. As was pointed out on our podcast by the ever-insightful LuzRaposa, arT has a bit of a history of wilting in offline events after smashing it online too.

MOUZ vs FUT is the third quarter-final, and almost definitely the most exciting. FUT are the most interesting team in the world right now, and this is their first big tournament playoffs - but they've got a bit of a baptism of fire.

MOUZ are arguably the favourites for the tournament and as much as they seem to find new ways to not win events, they do tend to smash it in quarter-finals especially against weaker teams, and less experienced ones. Their rifle depth is superb, and torzsi consistently is one of the best AWPers in the world, almost to the point that he's maybe slightly underrated.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. FUT are completely new to this level of play and playing in front of a crowd, and some teams and players just take to it immediately. Their style isn't inherently quicksilver and shouldn't suffer massively in terms of being reliant on individuals if one player has a bit of an off-game on stage, and they have the firepower to beat anyone if everything clicks.

For FUT too, even if they lose, this is valuable experience, and they are still so young that time is on their side even if they choke this time. They almost have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, while there is pressure on this MOUZ team to win and they don't like pressure.

FUT will have the crowd, too, most likely.

We like this new Astralis team, we really do. They're getting a lot out of their pieces - who are not bad, but they don't have a superstar of any description - and HooXi is calling extremely well. They're playing probably above their level as a team, and we're excited to see where their ceiling is because they're going toe-to-toe with some solid teams right now.

But they won't beat Spirit.

No matter how well you call, it doesn't really matter against Spirit. They don't need the futile obsession with 'systems' and 'tactics' because they have the best player to ever touch the game (argue among yourselves) and one of the best late round AWPers in the world backing him up. HooXi might be able to outcall magixx - we'd be amazed if he didn't - but it's pointless getting donk out of position because he'll multikill you anyway.

We just don't see a world where Astralis beat Spirit. Sorry, guys.