Mousesports fought tooth and nail for a title and they did so despite two separate incidents concerning visa issues. Prior to the start of the event, Turkish CS:GO AWPer Özgür “woxic” Eker encountered visa problems, preventing him from participating. In his place, Danish Niels Christian “NaToSaphiX” Sillassen took his place temporarily. However, during the grand final itself, mousesports would run into another visa-related hiccup once more.
Group Stage
Mousesports’ group stage performance left a lot to be desired. They played relatively well against the newly-debuted OG roster, which featured former ENCE star Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen. Though the second map went down to the wire ’til the last round, the German side managed to seal the 2-0. They then dropped a map to Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski’s outgoing Virtus.Pro lineup, 1-1. In the second day, G2 Esports demolished them in a swift 2-0, with mousesports winning just five rounds total in both games. Thankfully, they bounced right back a couple of hours later with a 1-1 against Epitácio “TACO” de Melo’s MIBR squad and then an easy 2-0 to knock out FURIA Esports.
Semis
In the semifinals, mousesports drew OG while G2 Esports duked it out with Virtus.Pro on the other side. OG played well on the first map (Mirage), managing to come back from a 10-5 first half deficit. They dropped just two round on their T side to claim a 1-0 lead in the best of three series.
Mousesports came roaring right back into the series in the following map (Inferno). They shot off to a 7-0 lead on their CT side and finished the half in an intimidating 14-1. They then clinched map point in the pistol round of their T side, but gave up a four-round streak to OG. However, the margin for error proved to be too slim at that point for OG, losing the map at the 21st round.
In the final map of the semis (Dust 2), both teams played streaky, with the first half ending in a tight 8-7 in favor of OG. They continued to trade short streaks in the second half. Then, mousesports won four straight to clinch series point at round #26. OG failed to stop the bomb plant in round #28, ending the series in favor of mousesports.
Finals
On the other side of the bracket, G2 Esports dispatched Virtus.Pro in a similar reverse sweep. Facing off against the only team to 2-0 them, mousesports struggled to put the Frenchmen away in Map 1 (Mirage). The game had to go to overtime but the German team finally managed to clinch the map off of Robin “ropz” Kool.
However, they suffered the second blow to their roster right after the first map. IGL Finn “karrigan” Andersen packed his gear to catch a flight in order to prepare for EPICENTER 2019. Their coach, Allan “Rejin” Petersen, took his place.
G2 Esports made sure to exploit this unfortunate mishap in the following map (Vertigo). The Frenchmen basically sealed the game off of a 14-1 T side performance before finishing the game with a couple rounds on the CT side. However, mousesports kept their composure and stayed in the hunt on the third map (Train). Facing a 5-10 deficit, they clawed their way back thanks to a string of CT side victories in the second half where they clinched tournament point after a successful defuse. However, G2 managed to get a bomb plant in the following round to keep it tense. Then, mousesports finally got over the hump by fragging all five G2 players.
This win pushes mousesports to their second trophy in a row, with a possible third at EPICENTER 2019. That would certainly be a fantastic year-ender for the team.
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