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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
xelex actually might be donk 2
We’re beginning to realise we glazed Vitality too hard yesterday, MOUZ made them look like 2025 VP today.
Spirit also made Falcons look like they had Snappi again, so we’re feeling pretty good about a banger final tomorrow.
We said yesterday that Falcons surely couldn't nail consistent 1v1s, 1v2s and 2v5s every round, and that if anyone was going to try, it'd be them.
They tried. It didn't work.
Falcons picked Nuke and then failed to win a single round on it until the twelfth, which took a karrigan 1v2 to get. And if karrigan winning a clutch sounds like the high point of his evening, that's because it was - he finished the map on a 0.62 with 36.3 ADR.
The finest moment of that T side was kyousuke's quick triple kill with a Deagle on A, which was genuinely beautiful, but it also didn't impact the f-cking game in the slightest.
And here's the thing; Spirit weren't actually all that good either. They just never had to be.
Because when Spirit finally had to attack something, they were dreadful. They won eight of twenty-one T rounds across the series. Their Nuke T half was a 2-7 capitulation where not one player broke a 1.00, donk managed 38.7 ADR, and zont1x put up a 0.29 rating and 17.8 ADR across nine rounds. That's nine rounds of a semi-final that he spent doing nothing whatsoever.
Ancient saw a more respectable 6-6 half, but Spirit only looked like a proper team on the CT side. TeSeS clutched a 1v2 in the twenty-third to keep Falcons alive for one more round and m0NESY, last man alive in the final round, brought a 1v4 so close to completion that donk visibly stopped celebrating for a moment.
m0NESY, alone, couldn't get it over the line, and it seemed that nobody was coming to help him. NiKo went 21-33 across the series with karrigan not far behind at 19-33.
So, Spirit go to the final against MOUZ, ten series unbeaten, despite not being a good team for a full forty minutes.
That's what's so frightening about this Team Spirit lineup. They're not playing particularly well. They're just not losing.
Yesterday, we spoke about Vitality’s resiliency being their most defining factor. Today, we’ll be speaking about how determination is swiftly becoming MOUZ’.
MOUZ, for all their deep runs in 2025, just couldn’t win events. Mostly because they lost to Vitality every time. Since xertioN took over as IGL, though, something just feels different about them.
This game was the perfect encapsulation of that. After a rather commanding CT side from MOUZ on Dust2, Vitality answered back to wrestle control of the map at 10-8, having been down 8-4 at the half.
So what did MOUZ do? Make it clear that they don’t give no f-cks anymore, and won five of the next six rounds to close it out at 13-11.
Mirage was a similar story, too, with MOUZ once again taking charge after a Vitality flurry to take the game away from their longstanding enemies.
It was a performance that actually made us believe. And, for the first time ever, actually think that these lot might have some aura.
Yeah, we can’t believe it either.
But seriously, this xertioN IGL stint is proving us very wrong. He’s legit. And so too are PR and xelex, who have both been massive upgrades to the team since joining.
A few months ago, we’d have looked at this game and said that, even with Vitality having a stand-in, apEX and co. would smash MOUZ every time, but now, even if mezii was on the server, we’re not sure the greatest team of all time could actually get a win over this MOUZ team.
This is the determination MOUZ have always sorely been lacking, and it’s this level of determination that could see them lift their second trophy of the year here in Portugal.
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We're at the playoffs here at BLAST Open Porto. How are you feeling about it?
Feeling ready to hit the playoffs. We have days to prepare now and we are going to make the best out of it. We'll make some small tweaks to our game, just see what areas we can improve at, and just believe in ourselves whilst going into the semis with a lot of confidence.
You sound like you quite enjoy having an extra day to prepare, but I know a few teams have a pretty bad record when going straight to the semis. How do you feel about that extra day, do you think it can only be positive for you guys, or do you wish you had an extra match to get warmed up?
I think the main positive of playing in the quarters is that you get to feel the arena. But also, having the extra day going into the semis where you'd have to play one good team that you could potentially lose to in the quarters, you don't have to do that anymore. You've also won three games in your group stage, which gives a lot of confidence, and you get an extra day to prepare. If you use that day to prepare properly, it puts you in a much better spot than other teams who have to play the quarters. So with what we have, the coaching staff we have, we will do a really good job at preparing for the semi-final. It will definitely be a bonus for us that we get to start there.
You're a few months into your tenure as the IGL now. Has it gone better than you expected as you picked up that trophy at Bounty so early in your career as an IGL?
I mean, I would say on an individual level, I wouldn't say I'm surprised. I always knew that I had some of what it takes. My coach had a lot of belief in me when he wanted me to take over the role, and I'm lucky and thankful that it worked out, with a lot of hard work from my side and his. I think that as a team, it definitely went better than expected. Going into BLAST Bounty, we weren't sure where we would stand with the order, we didn't have that much practice yet. Taking down Spirit in the fashion we did, considering how dominant Spirit are right now, it shows a lot of good signs for us. I would say definitely it's been going well, but when you're in MOUZ, when you're in this organization, you always expect to maintain yourself at the top.
In terms of your own output as an IGL, you've kind of broken down walls of what an IGL can do in the fragging department. Are you consciously calling to look out for yourself, or did it reignite something in you as a player when you became an IGL?
On T-side I don't think I have many rounds for myself. I usually try to put everyone else in good positions. Of course, the team also needs me to succeed. I'm not going to be this typical IGL that is going to run in and die every round or throw util and not really get much impact done. I want to be an IGL that is somewhere in the middle. I can also sacrifice, I always did that in my career but at the same time, sometimes I can just take over rounds now. I don't want to be a liability. I want to be a new generation of an IGL, to be something that no one has ever done before, that's my goal. On CT-sides now I just have more confidence overall in our game, how we play, because I'm the leader now. I think it's easier for me to perform well. Of course, spending time on Skybox, watching demos and this repeated work also made me a better player in the last couple of months. So yeah, I think it's a bit of a mixture, but I wouldn't say that I'm calling for myself to succeed.
torzsi did an interview with BLASTtv where he said it was great that you guys got that win. But with the two younger players in the team now, and the kind of inexperience that they have compared to you guys, you've had to lower expectations slightly. Maybe it will take a little longer to get back to the MOUZ of 2025 when you're always in the top four. What are the actual expectations that you guys are setting right now?
Well, to be honest, I think our expectations were getting lowered already in the beginning of 2026. We had a really rough four months with the last roster, so I think for us it was about getting back to the road that we were on for the last four years in MOUZ. We have been a top five team for two and a half years now already, and people maybe don't remember that, but also in the Vitality era we were the second best team in the world. Not many teams could have done that. Overall, the expectations went lower in the beginning of 2026. With the roster change, we didn't really know what to expect, we wanted to see how it goes. So far I think it's been going really well, and confidently I can say that we are maybe one of the top three best teams in the world right now.
You said your expectations were lowering anyway. Was that more a consequence of the form of the team, or of the form of other teams and other teams improving?
I wouldn't say it was due to other teams. I think it was a lot due to us, how we performed, how we connected over the last four months was not so good from everyone. Everyone had a tough moment, that's the reason why we made the roster change in the end, and also why it became a bit drastic with me becoming an IGL. Everyone felt that we needed something new, and while I have respect for all my ex-teammates, I think it was the best thing that we could have done in that moment.
You're a young IGL. Is it harder for you that you've got to learn this new role while having these inexperienced players that you've got to help find their way in tier one? Or do you think it's actually beneficial, because you're all in that space of learning together?
I think there's two sides of the coin. If I had four really experienced players, I would be able to progress a bit faster probably, I'd also be able to focus more on my own individual development and stuff like that. At the same time, I think the other side of the coin is that having two young guys means that I can shape them up in ways that I would like them to be. They are really open for feedback, they are really open to listening, they have a lot of respect for me and all the veterans in our team. I think there is definitely positives for both. If I could choose, I would definitely choose the route of having the young guys and helping them develop. Sharing a bit of my knowledge, especially to xelex, who played the roles that I used to play, it's a blessing for me as a leader. I'm seeing and learning how I can positively influence him as a young player without putting too much pressure on him yet. It's a blessing to have two young players on the team while I become a new IGL.
📺 Watch the interview on YouTube here.
Spirit are the best team in the world, ten series unbeaten, and most people, ourselves included, believe they know how this ends. So here's a slightly inconvenient fact: the last Bo5 these two teams played, MOUZ beat them 3-1.
That match up was a mere five weeks ago at BLAST Bounty. MOUZ took Nuke 13-10, lost Ancient, then 13-4'd Spirit on Mirage and finished it 13-8 on Dust2. Which is the map Spirit plays more than any other.
Nobody's beaten Spirit since. Spirit hasn’t even dropped a map this tournament. It's just unfortunate that the last people to beat them are also the ones set to stand against them in the final.
Then there's the map pool, which poses more of a problem for Spirit than MOUZ. A Bo5 gives you a single ban, and Inferno is the one consistent map Spirit always bans. MOUZ also play it, and they're pretty good at it. But that leaves a problem for Spirit, too, as MOUZ picks Nuke a lot while maintaining a healthy 80% win rate on it.
Spirit's sole answer is Ancient, where they're 8-0 to MOUZ's 3-6. Spirit will get it, Spirit will win it, and then they still need to win an additional two more out of a pool that MOUZ holds the advantage in.
On top of that, we already know that Spirit has some weaknesses. Despite beating Falcons 2-0 in the semi-finals, they won eight of twenty-one T rounds. Spirit buried that under a monstrous CT side. Over five, against a team that just bested Vitality, that's an awful lot of free rounds going the way of the mouse.
Even still, none of this is enough to make MOUZ the favourites. torzsi sits at a 1.18 rating against donk's frankly absurd 1.44, which sums up the uphill battle MOUZ faces. Especially given that it was Spinx and PR who stepped up last time, with torszi being unusually quiet.
That doesn't take away from the fact that they're still the last team to beat Spirit. And it was in this exact format.
I'm not saying MOUZ will win… but stranger things have happened.
Okay, we know m0NESY didn’t actually win this round. But look at this sh-t. This kid never fails to amaze us. He makes the impossible feel more possible than anyone ever has done before, and he was so close to another timeless moment.
Thanks magixx for ruining it.
Source: Twitch
