Who are they?: The Huns

With The MongolZ’ controversial move to bench Senzu (which does seem to be a mutual one and nothing to do with in-server performance), there’s a spot open for the best team in Mongolia - and Asia.

The Huns are the latest to step up to the plate and swing for a home run, but we feel they might have a long way to go before they really get close.

How did they get here?

The Huns have, as you’d imagine, been pretty good domestically but fallen short with some regularity against teams like The MongolZ, Rare Atom, TYLOO and Chinggis Warriors. They can, and do, beat them, but not with any serious consistency, which is a bit of a red flag when it comes to international competition.

Having said that, they did win MESA Pro Series Fall and ESN Fall Showdown, while qualifying for a host of other tournaments in first place. They are one of the better teams in the region, which their VRS ranking shows, but they are not The MongolZ.

Who does what?

nin9 is an old-school AWP/IGL, which obviously leaves a lot of room for a bunch of riflers. The main benefit of such a player is that you can have more specialist riflers and call around yourself, which nin9 tries to do. He’s just not great at the top level.

sk0R is the star rifler, and unlike a couple of the other teams we’ve covered in Who are they?, is actually their best player. How refreshing. He’s similar in style to Senzu, and The Huns will have to hope he’s as good as Senzu. Spoiler: he isn’t.

He’s pretty good though. We’re being mean.

cobrazera is tasked with anchoring down sites on the CT side and then has a mix of spacetaking and lurking roles on T side. He’s a pretty versatile soldier who fills in gaps.

xerolte has some very good roles, but doesn’t really play them like a star would. For example, he plays Connector on Mirage, but uses it for info like apEX or Aleksib might, rather than how, say, NiKo would. Given he isn’t the IGL, that’s a little worrying.

Bart4k is something of a known quantity as he spent some time on The MongolZ (then IHC), and he’s the same player now. Very supportive, willing to do the dirty work, and all of the other nice cliches you use for a guy who puts you at a pretty big firepower disadvantage.

To put it nicely.

What are they good at?

nin9 and sk0R are capable players and make a decent star rifler and AWPer duo, with sk0R giving The Huns at least a clear win condition. He’s got a 1.09 rating against top 50 teams, though that does include a lot of games against Chinggis Warriors and Rare Atom rather than Team Vitality and GamerLegion.

They are relatively well-structured with clear, defined roles for the most part, looking like a team that is built around the AWP-IGL. They aren’t an old Asian team where structure was largely foregone in lieu of firepower - indeed, this is like the exact opposite (which might give you a clue as to what one of the negatives might be).

They are likely to be relatively unknown and little footage of them against this tier of opposition in Europe exists.

cobrazera has a couple of maps where he’s very good on the T side, namely Overpass and Ancient. The data scientist at rdy.gg said he ‘plays Monster on CT side, and like a monster on T side on Overpass’, which is pretty accurate.

How do you beat them?

Outshoot them. They simply do not have the firepower to live with top tier opposition, and there’s a reason 3DMAX 13-1’d them Bart4k is the worst offender (he doesn’t have above a 1 rating on any map), but at least he’s in poor roles - xerolte is in star roles and doesn’t frag, either.

nin9 is one of their better players, but he’s not one of the better AWPers at the event, and that’s an issue. Similarly, sk0R is their best player, but he wouldn’t be a star for anyone else, really - and he requires a lot of set-up to be as good as he is.

They quite bluntly will not be able to live with the level of player at this event, and it will be a big shock if they don’t go 0-3.

Expectations

Anything other than an 0-3 would be a good result. This is likely to be a learning experience for them more than anything else.