MOUZ steamroll The MongolZ to end IEM drought in Beijing

MOUZ absolutely battered The MongolZ in three quick maps to claim an IEM trophy for the first time in over a decade in Beijing - in undefeated fashion.

MOUZ didn't drop a single map en route to the final, and won this one 3-0 to stamp their authority on a tournament that, yes, was missing a handful of big names, but underlines their credentials for the Major and for the number one spot.

xertioN had a lights-out tournament and kept that up throughout the final, but it was a complete performance from everyone on that team that made the game such a walkover, bar - essentially - one half of play.

It was the aforementioned xertioN who cut The MongolZ to ribbons on Mirage, as they had no answer to him in connector on both sides of the map. It was a close map for about eight rounds, before MOUZ just hit an extra gear and scythed through the defence for right T rounds, and dropped just one round in the second half.

There was a sincere feeling of inevitability after that.

After going up 4-3, The MongolZ won just one more round, as 910 and Techno pulled off a 2v2 to extend play late on, but aside from that showed very little. MOUZ had multiple clean rounds - xertioN's back-to-back doubles at the end of the first half, a clean sweep in a quick round 12, even a very messily converted 5v2 in the pistol that somehow came down to a 1v1 didn't do much to dissuage the idea that MOUZ were superior.

A quick start to Dust 2 saw MOUZ up 6-1, too, and it was starting to feel over at that point. The MongolZ showed some signs of life however, with 910 finding two picks in middle and a bLitz triple keeping the game alive. They even bought four AWPs in the final round of the first half, catching torzsi and allowing Techno to take B nearly unopposed.

They paid for that showboating immediately, though.

MOUZ swept them clean in that second half; at one point, MongolZ had six kills combined in six rounds. It was brutal. Spinx and torzsi pulled off a 2v4 in the first gun round, and that seemed to be the round that broke The MongolZ completely.

Even the third map didn't let them reset. MongolZ picked up just four rounds on Inferno, and two of them were individual brilliance from Techno. They were completely outclassed from start to finish tactically, positionally and in terms of speed of thought. Even mechanically too, though the gap was smaller. MOUZ just outthought The MongolZ at every turn.

Techno did what he could on Inferno and probably didn't deserve to get so brutally beaten, but PR matched him and had the team to back him up. This was as dominant a performance at a big event as we've seen in a long time, and begs the question.

Could MOUZ be the best team in the world right now?