Don't get carried away: MOUZ's Astana debut is promising but there's a long way to go
In their first event with xertioN as IGL, MOUZ have advanced to the playoffs of PGL Astana with a 3-1 record, picking up impressive wins against Gentle Mates, G2, and Aurora in the process.
However, in light of everything that has gone on with MOUZ this year, prior to the benchings of Brollan and Jimpphat, is this a new norm? Or is this a honeymoon period that we can expect to see come to a swift end as past problems rear their head once more?
Firepower concerns
Firepower has been a consistent all year for MOUZ. In 2026, only one player (Brollan) had seen his ratings increase compared to 2025, while the other four members (xertioN, torzsi, Spinx, and Jimpphat) all suffered decreases.
The most notable of these is torzsi, with the Hungarian sniper seemingly still struggling with the fact that he got booed at his home Major in December. His drop off from 1.06 on LAN vs top 30 opposition in 2025 to 1.00 in 2026 has been felt dearly, and although his 1.05 showing thus far in Astana is an improvement, it’s a problem area that xertioN and synchrony will need to consistently address if MOUZ are to return to their permanent residence in the playoffs of big events.
xertioN has been a consistent problem, too, although we need more advanced metrics to really understand why.
The first of these two graphs shows riflers' ability to hit their first bullet. As you can see from it, only dumau is worse than xertioN at doing so in the top 15 teams, and considering it involves names like HooXi, karrigan, and apEX - that’s pretty damning.
But perhaps not as damning as the second graph. The second graph displays MOUZ players’ performances, relative to their positioning as stars within the team - as in, the positions they occupy and the resources (such as flashbangs) that are thrown their way in order to help them succeed.
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Therefore, when looking at this graph we can see that xertioN, despite being held up as the primary rifle star of the team, isn’t holding up his end of the bargain, putting up a worryingly negative duel swing.
If duel swing is a new metric to you, read about it here. In short, though, it’s a metric designed to say whether or not a player actually should have killed the opponent they were fighting.
Which basically means you want your stars to be positioned more like Spinx, not xertioN. Considering xertioN hasn’t given up any of his spots to make room for the arrival of xelex, that certainly provides cause for concern in the long run.
Roster instability
When looking at MOUZ in 2026, it’s hard to look past their position in the rumour mill following the conclusion of the StarLadder Budapest Major in December. After a tough 2025, it was heavily expected Jimpphat would leave the team, likely with GamerLegion’s PR coming in to replace him, yet neither of those moves materialised.
As a result, changes had been expected for a long time, not just because of the seemingly unsettled Jimpphat, but also due to the T sides coming out of Brollan’s IGLing.
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However, MOUZ haven’t exactly got to make their changes yet. Brollan and Jimpphat are both out, sure, but jL’s signing is - at least for now - only a temporary one; Brollan will be back in for the IEM Cologne Major.
With that in mind, how can MOUZ really expect to move forward at full steam? They may have hopes to sign jL permanently post-Cologne, they may already have a deal in place to do so, but what if they don’t? What if a better offer comes from elsewhere? Where do MOUZ turn then?
It’s at that point you realise that this MOUZ rebuild might not be as simple as the debut in Astana suggests. Not only are they bedding in a new captain and a new player - who is also only 17 - their fifth spot is not yet secure, and that could become an even greater issue if this Astana form does prove to be a flash in the pan.
Regressing to the mean
Even if we look past xertioN’s form for the majority of 2026, it’s hard to see how, as an IGL, he will be able to keep up the 1.34 rating he currently sits on at PGL Astana.
His impressive rating, which is made even more impressive by being across 11 maps, does begin to fall down when you see the disparity between the two halves. xertioN’s CT rating for Astana thus far is at a monstrous 1.64. His T sides? 1.06.
That T-side rating, which was at 0.97 for the year before this event, may actually be sustainable. xertioN is opening rounds a lot less than he was before IGLing (20.6% as opposed to 31.8% of rounds), but it’s the CT side where the real concern lies.
Even for donk, a 1.64-rated CT side would be incredible. For xertioN, it’s practically unheard of. It’s helped MOUZ to a 59.2% win rate on the CT side, the fourth highest at the event behind 9z, FURIA, and Aurora. But what will that look like when xertioN regresses to the mean, and sits somewhere closer to the 1.13 CT side rating he’s picked up for the rest of the year?
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The drop in individual output could be alleviated by Spinx and xelex, the duo are at 1.04 and 0.94 on the CT side, respectively, and there’s reason to believe it will. For Spinx, this is undoubtedly an off-event, and in the case of xelex, he’s having to adapt to roles that he wasn’t playing on MOUZ NXT, and it will be some time before he’s at his peak levels within them.
In the meantime, though, MOUZ will have to step up their game on their T side to combat what will likely be a drop in CT performance. They currently have a respectable-enough 48.1% T-side win rate in Astana (sixth-highest), but with that likely to see a slight decline at a better-attended tournament or with more games against higher-level opposition, it could once again become a problem as it was with the Brollan-led edition of the lineup.
All of this is to say that, although the start to life with xertioN as captain is promising, there’s a long way to go before it’s entirely convincing. Astana was a great place for MOUZ to debut their new team, and although they’ve beaten some respectable opposition, they have also lost to 9z.
These are the types of losses that tarnished the last weeks of the previous roster, and ultimately signalled that the MOUZ we had grown accustomed to was gone. If xertioN and MOUZ want to succeed in their new era, they’re losses that need to be stamped out right away, or risk finding themselves back at square one in just a few short months.
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