MAD Lions vs MOUZ: What form are MOUZ in?

The historic victory of Natus Vincere at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 is still fresh in the minds of the fans, but the new tournaments are ready to please CS fans with exciting matches and fiery highlights. The first tournament after the Majors will be DreamHack Open November, which selected a good lineup of participants, and the CIS region will represent two teams at once. The tournament will be held from November 10 to 14, eight teams will be competing for a $100,000 prize pool.

On November 10, MAD Lions and MOUZ will play their opening match in the DreamHack Open November 2021. We will soon find out which team will be stronger and earn the first victory in the tournament.

MAD Lions have noticeably risen in the last three months. The team has added 30 positions and is now one step away from the top 20. It’s true that in recent times the team's results have been disappointing. Yes, to crush teams that are not even in the top-100 HLTV rankings is fun, but with more or less serious opponents in recent games it was not possible to play. Even with OFFSET, who are on the border of the top 100, the team experienced huge problems and eventually lost. In recent matches Woro2k - the team's leading scorer - went down and perhaps because of this the team's results deteriorated. Yes, you can’t say that the team is in serious decline, because they haven't lost that many matches, but the trend is disappointing so far.

If you look at the map pool of teams, you can immediately see that the MAD Lions will not be able to play their strongest map in terms of win rate (Overpass), as MOUZ necessarily have it banned. Despite this, MAD Lions have plenty of options for the pick. The team has taken Mirage or Dust2 as their pick of late more often than not. If the first map is unlikely to be taken with their pick, then Dust2 is something to think about. Although it can't be said that MAD Lions feel confident on this map. Defeats to Macedonians from AIRLYA or EC Kyiv raise questions. In the last three months MOUZ have only lost on Dust2 to BIG, who have one of the best maps in the world. There is a small chance that MAD Lions will want to surprise and pick Ancient relying on the opponent's small number of maps played, but this variant is the least believable. And if you look at Mirage or Dust2, MOUZ doesn't look like an outsider.

MOUZ managed to qualify for the main stage of the majors, but finished only 12-14th there without making the playoffs. For ropz and frozen, this is a failure, as well as for the team in general. The team is sorely lacking a consistent tackler. We can already say now, that the signing of acoR was a mistake and with a stronger sniper the team can again contend for high places. In this tournament, though, the team has a good chance of success, still acoR feels much more confident against teams not in the top 20.

As for the maps, MOUZ have a difficult choice. In recent tournaments, the team has picked everything from Ancient to Nuke. At first glance, Nuke looks like the best option. MOUZ feel pretty confident on it, but MAD Lions can't boast serious results on this map. 90% of the wins were over teams not ranked in the top 30 of the HLTV rankings, which downgrades the MAD Lions' win rate a bit. Looking at the maps, it can't be said that any of the teams has an advantage, but on the level of play, the Mice are noticeably stronger than their opponent, and if they haven't taken a long holiday after the majors, they may well win.

MOUZ look the favorite of the meeting, but only a slight one. There is no advantage for either team on the maps and much will depend on the current form of the teams. MAD Lions have not played their best matches in recent years, but perhaps they were not as motivated as they were at FlowFiReLEAGUE 2021 Iberia. As for MOUZ it is still unclear in what form they will be after the Majors. But if the boys play to their strengths, they should beat a less experienced opponent.

The bookmakers are offering odds of 1.53 for MOUZ to win with a handicap (-3.5), which looks like a good option. You can also take Total Over 2.5 maps for 1.99 or a correct score of 2-1 for 4.00.