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Sycrone is ready to take MOUZ to the next level

When he was promoted to Head Coach of MOUZ’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team in January 2022, Dennis “sycrone” Nielsen... Benjamin Mock | 25. June 2022

When he was promoted to Head Coach of MOUZ’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team in January 2022, Dennis “sycrone” Nielsen took over a team at a major crossroads. After a tough first half of the year, the Danish coach believes that the team is ready to turn a corner.

A rough start

Our interview begins with an unfocused camera.

“Hang on, it’ll get there” sycrone says with a laugh as he repeatedly puts his hand up to the camera and quickly pulls it back in the hopes it will get the camera to focus. Finally, it does and the 26-year-old CS:GO coach comes into view.

It’s a fitting allegory for how the first six months of his tenure as MOUZ’s head coach have gone.

“When I joined the team, there was a lot of change happening,” sycrone said, “Obviously, ropz had gone. They had just benched acoR. It was a very busy time for me to join the team.”

Sycrone had been serving on the coaching staff for MOUZ NXT, the organization’s academy team, prior to his promotion to the role of main roster head coach. The day after he joined, the org signed legendary player Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt, bringing him out of his CS:GO retirement.

However, the first months of sycrone’s tenure have not been the most successful. MOUZ are yet to make the playoffs at any major tournament and failed to qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp. Despite the adversity, sycrone acknowledged the necessity for the tough run of results.

“It has been frustrating,” he admitted, “Especially our performance in the RMR [the qualifying tournament for the PGL Major, we have not played our best games at times. It would have been nice to reach the playoffs at the tournaments we played. However, we have gotten better with each game and can’t be derailed by our lack of success. We just have to keep building towards it.”

The poor run of form also saw NBK- benched in, with MOUZ NXT player Jon “JDC” de Castro promoted to replace him.

The turnaround

The second half of 2022 is packed with tournaments and potential appearances for MOUZ. Sycrone feels that his team is ready to compete.

“I think we are in a better place than we were at the start of the year,” sycrone explained, “Going forwards, I want to us reach the playoffs at tournaments. I want us to build on what we have learned in the first half of the year.”

But two tournaments, in particular, stick out for the coach — IEM Cologne and IEM Major Rio.

“As a German organization, doing well in Cologne is so important to us,” sycrone said, “For the players, for the fans, for Germany. Also, we would like to break the K curse — we have never reached the playoffs at a tournament hosted in a place beginning with K. Krakow, Katowice, Cologne, or Koln. We want to break that curse at Cologne this time around.”

While the IEM Major Rio, scheduled to run across the first two weeks of November, is a long way off, it’s already on sycrone’s mind.

“I want us to be in Rio in November,” he stated, “I think it’s going to be the biggest Major for our sport ever. Not just with the teams and the competition, but with the Brazilian fans and their love of the sport. It’s going to be the biggest Major ever and I want us to be there. I think we need to be there, to show that we have changed and we are successful.”

The rise of the international roster

International rosters are still a relatively new thing in the world of CS:GO. MOUZ is currently represented by six different nationalities, including sycrone. And while the head coach considers the format to be the inevitable future of CS:GO rosters, there is one major hurdle that MOUZ had to overcome.

“The biggest issue for us was communication,” sycrone explained, “Obviously English is sort of the common language for these teams with players from different places but not everyone speaks English at the same level. So one of the first things we did when I took over was work with the team to develop codes for things in-game. That way, we had a set of things we could say to communicate what we wanted to do. And if players didn’t speak English as well as some other players, I felt it was important to encourage them to be more vocal during practices to give them more confidence.”

But sycrone still sees international rosters as the likely future moving forwards.

“We just saw FaZe win a major with an international roster, the first team to win a Major with a truly international roster. I think we will see more teams making international rosters over time. Obviously, there are benefits to having everyone from the same country, but the best teams will pursue the best players regardless of where they come from.”

The state of CS:GO

“I think CS:GO is in a very interesting place” sycrone began, “There are some very good teams, and a lot of teams that could become very good.” He paused to laugh before continuing, “I want MOUZ to be one of those teams. By the team of the year, I am very much hoping we can be a top ten team, even maybe try to push for the top five. But there are a lot of good teams right now.”

Over the past months, the world of CS:GO has seen the rise of the FaZe superteam and the partial collapse of NAVI (though they have since bounced back at BLAST). But other teams such as ENCE have firmly established themselves as contenders as well, while Cloud9’s recently acquired roster looks to scale the rankings.

“All of these good teams is why I think Rio will be the biggest Major ever,” sycrone explained, “I think we saw a little bit of it at Antwerp. But I also think there were a lot of surprises there, with a lot of big teams not doing as well as people expected. So I think we will really think we will see that in Rio.”

Sycrone concluded the interview by addressing the MOUZ fans directly.

“I would ask fans to trust the process. I know we haven’t lived up to expectations so far this year but I genuinely think we are building something really great. I ask fans to keep supporting us and it will pay off in the end. We are so thankful for the fans who support and we aren’t going to let them down going forwards.”

The rest of the year is busy for MOUZ, but sycrone and his international roster are ready to face it head-on.

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