Mousesports will be one of the eight teams attending the EMS One LAN finals. In their first game, the German team has to go up against Alliance, formerly known as No Tidehunter. Since the tournament format does not feature a lower bracket, an excellent performance is required every single game. We caught up with their carry player Dominik 'Black^' Reitmeier and asked about his opinion on the tournament format, his team's chances and also touched upon the DDoS issue.
Good luck with that! Let's go back to the tournament format for a question as many fans were disappointed with it. Four very strong teams - your team, Na`Vi, Alliance and Fnatic.EU - were seeded to meet in the first stage and two of those teams will be eliminated right after the first match, whereas three smaller teams - RoX.KIS, dd and rat - as well as Absolute Legends seem to have an easier time. What is your take on this tournament format?
Hmm, I think they drew the brackets, which makes everything random, if they used the group seedings - like the winner of A meets the 2. place of B - it would have been much different. What also influenced the brackets was that nth, now Alliance, actually placed second in their group. I know, many people think it's bad and that the semi final of the lower part of bracket is considered to be the *grand* final because no team of the upper part of the bracket stands a chance of the bottom part-winner, but I'm not so sure of that. RoX.KiS, dd and aL really stepped up their game, so I think they can definitely pose a threat to any team in this tournament, so it shouldn't be as bad as everyone makes it.
Your first opponent will be Alliance, formerly know as No Tidehunter. How confident do you feel going up against the winners of StarLadder Season 5?
Our previous encounters have always been fairly close, but they keep improving every day and we think they're the best team in the Western scene as of now. Since it's single elimination and because of our recent encounters we feel rather confident, but we will still go into this match as the obvious underdog.
I see. You have attended quite a few LANs with mouz now. How do you like the overall atmosphere, which other players are you friends with and do you have to give a lot of signatures?
The overall atmosphere is awesome most of the time, cause we have lots of fun together when playing, everyone is friends with everyone. Concerning the signatures - at TI2 I had to give about 150+, on other lans such as DreamHack, it was about a quarter of that.
Hmm, I think they drew the brackets, which makes everything random, if they used the group seedings - like the winner of A meets the 2. place of B - it would have been much different. What also influenced the brackets was that nth, now Alliance, actually placed second in their group. I know, many people think it's bad and that the semi final of the lower part of bracket is considered to be the *grand* final because no team of the upper part of the bracket stands a chance of the bottom part-winner, but I'm not so sure of that. RoX.KiS, dd and aL really stepped up their game, so I think they can definitely pose a threat to any team in this tournament, so it shouldn't be as bad as everyone makes it.
Your first opponent will be Alliance, formerly know as No Tidehunter. How confident do you feel going up against the winners of StarLadder Season 5?
Our previous encounters have always been fairly close, but they keep improving every day and we think they're the best team in the Western scene as of now. Since it's single elimination and because of our recent encounters we feel rather confident, but we will still go into this match as the obvious underdog.
I see. You have attended quite a few LANs with mouz now. How do you like the overall atmosphere, which other players are you friends with and do you have to give a lot of signatures?
The overall atmosphere is awesome most of the time, cause we have lots of fun together when playing, everyone is friends with everyone. Concerning the signatures - at TI2 I had to give about 150+, on other lans such as DreamHack, it was about a quarter of that.
