What to expect from FURIA v. MOUZ

Today, Andrei "arT" Piovezan's men will play MOUZ for a chance to play in the upper bracket finals. Regardless of who wins those finals, they will automatically secure a spot in the top 12, so winning this match is imperative for both squads. FURIA defeated Imperial 2-0, but MOUZ absolutely annihilated SAW, only allowing twelve rounds total across two maps. This will be both teams' first opponent in the top fifteen at ESL Pro League Season 17.

Also read: Complexity's close loss to BIG; what went wrong?

FURIA's form

FURIA comes into EPL in a fragmented form. After the high of finishing IEM Rio in 3-4th, the team has had a terrible start to the year, failing to make IEM Katowice's main stage after a disappointing loss to IHC. Now though, they look ready to show that they can compete internationally once more. Earlier today, they dispatched Imperial in a solid 2-0, yoinking away Imperial's map pick of Inferno 16-6 and making a comeback to win Mirage 19-16. Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato continued his phenomenal form, posting an incredible 1.29 rating in that game only to be outshined by Rafael "saffee" Costa with a 1.34 rating himself.

KSCERATO has 1.32 rating over the last 3 months
Yuri "yuurih" Santos struggled vs Imperial, posted <60 ADR
Dust2, previous permaban, is now out of the map pool
Have only played Katowice Play-In since Rio Major

MOUZ's form

MOUZ completely dominated their opening match against SAW, who proved to be no competition for the international lineup's firepower. However, SAW is obviously not the strongest team in the group and they'll have harder challenges en route to the playoffs. MOUZ too, come off a disappointing performance at IEM Katowice. Unlike FURIA, they were invited to the main stage off the bat but lost to OG and Complexity to leave Katowice winless. MOUZ has had plenty of time to workshop since the IEM Rio Major, but we still have yet to see those results materialize.

Both Dorian "xertioN" Berman and David "frozen" Čerňanský posted 1.65 ratings vs SAW
Crashed out of IEM Katowice 0-2
Have only played IEM Katowice since Rio Major

Also read: Dust2 Digest: Top news from February 2023

Previous Matchups

The last time these two cores clashed was in late 2021, when xertioN, Ádám "torzsi" Torzsás, and Jon "JDC" de Castro were on MOUZ NXT and they played against FURIA in a Malta Vibes tournament. Impressively, the academy squad was able to take one map off FURIA, but ultimately succumbed to the Brazilians. A year and a half later, they face again. This time, the MOUZ team will have a lot more experience under their belts. For another fun fact, André "drop" Abreu used to play on FURIA Academy, making 40% of the server tomorrow academy graduates.

Likely Vetoes

With FURIA's permaban, Dust2, removed from the map pool, that leaves them with some room to play with vetoes. However, with them playing only seven maps since Anubis' addition, it's very tough to predict where they will go. MOUZ also suffers from a small sample size. They've played even fewer maps since Anubis entered the map pool - just six.

FURIA ban Overpass
MOUZ ban Anubis; Permaban since addition to map pool
FURIA pick Mirage; Confident in recent months, though shaky after overtime vs Imperial
MOUZ pick Ancient; Picked vs SAW, comfortably won
Decider Inferno; Both teams have shown comfort with Nuke and Inferno, both are possible

Extras

Bookmakers regard this game as a fairly even matchup, slightly favoring the Europeans in the betting booths. The odds for FURIA are ~2.1:1 while MOUZ sit at comfortable ~1.7:1 odds.