MOUZ see off 3DMAX in Shanghai

siuhy’s troops remain in the race for a playoff spot after a closely contested series.

MOUZ live to fight another day in the Shanghai Major’s Elimination Stage with a 2-0 victory over 3DMAX in the 1-2 pool. The No.5-ranked team will move on to Sunday’s 2-2 round, where they will play for a playoff spot.

The 2-0 scoreline doesn’t quite capture how close the series truly was. MOUZ had to come back from 8-10 down to secure Dust2, and 3DMAX were inches away from taking Nuke to overtime after a late comeback attempt.

“I think there is not much frustration because we did what we wanted to do,” Thomas “⁠Djoko⁠” Pavoni said after the match. “In some rounds, we made individual mistakes in some positions or some rotations. We are going to take that to improve and be better next time. We are happy with what we did at this Major.”

3DMAX started both halves of their Dust2 pick with a good game plan, bagging both pistol rounds and converting the next three for 4-0 and 9-7 leads early doors.

MOUZ made the right adjustments to recover from both deficits, however, with aggressive setups and timely flashes on the defense breaking 3DMAX’s defaults in the first half and lurk plays out B from Dorian “⁠xertioN⁠” Berman helping his team take back the lead in the second.

3DMAX started to recover at the end of the map, but a 1v3 from Kamil “⁠siuhy⁠” Szkaradek at the eleventh hour came as a back-breaker and let MOUZ squash the Frenchmen’s late recovery effort to steal the map.

A lengthy technical pause brought the early stages of Nuke to a grinding halt, but once play resumed MOUZ again jumped ahead despite losing out the majority of opening duels. 3DMAX found their footing on the T side at the midway point of the first half and brought the deficit down to two rounds before the break.

The French team maintained that momentum after the side switch and took the lead off the back of a clean pistol round. But as soon as Ádám “⁠torzsi⁠” Torzsás brought out the AWP, the complexion of the game changed. MOUZ kept their opponents at bay as they went on a dominant 5-0 run and withstood a late comeback attempt to put the game to bed just when overtime seemed inevitable.