ropz: "I think I can put in more hours and become a much better player"

In our post-match interview with Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool we heard the youngster's first impressions of the new MOUZ lineup and how his motivation has increased as a result of it coming together.

After testing the waters online in ECS Season 7 and on LAN at ESL Pro League Season 9, MOUZ have arrived in Australia to play at their first Big event with the Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led lineup. The European mixture fell to BIG in the opener, but recovered with wins over BOOT-d[S] and Renegades to get to the lower-bracket final of group A.

ropz has so far been the standout player for MOUZ, leading his team with a 1.37 rating over five maps played, but is seemingly set on becoming even better. In our interview, ropz mentions that karrigan's leadership makes the team much less chaotic, and talks about his determination to improve.

What are the first impressions of the new squad, having a new IGL and three new teammates?

It is a completely different system from what we had, because we never had a dedicated in-game leader such as karrigan. It feels much better to play under karrigan, because it feels like we have more control over what we are doing, it is not so chaotic. There is just much less chaos overall and that feels really good, he is a really good in-game leader.

woxic and frozen are really talented and are showing that in practice, and I hope that they will keep going in the official matches that we have coming. They are really good and we feel really good in practice, we dominated a lot of the teams so I hope it will show in this tournament also.

How has it been for you personally? When the team got together, you tweeted about not playing this much CS in a long time, that you are feeling good individually, was that also in part due to the new team coming together?

Yeah, definitely. In the old lineup, it was always the same stuff, some things that motivated us, but probably more things that demotivated us. Yeah, it is just a new system and it kind of gives you more motivation. Overall, it is more on the personal side that I'm playing more now, because I think I didn't give my best last year, and even earlier, when I just started. I think I can do much better, put in more hours and become a much better player than I am.

mousesports as an organization also went through some changes, in terms of management and ownership. Has there been any change to how mousesports approach you as a team, any structural changes, or is it still like it was before, where it is more up to you as players to do what you want to do?

We are trying to become more professional on that side. Obviously, the best example of this is Astralis, they are taking everything on a really high level. We are trying to do that, but we are not going so hard, I guess. What we want to do is still up to us but mousesports are offering the options. If we want to do something, for example, have mental coaches or nutritionists, we have all the options, but it is still up to us to decide.

You touched on it before, that in practice you have been doing pretty well. Obviously, you don't know how it is going to translate to LAN matches and a tournament like this, but what is the realistic thinking for you? Is winning the tournament something that you think you can do?

When we play in practice it feels like we are a top5 team, honestly. (laughs) Everyone is just so good, everyone is hitting their shots, karrigan is giving really great calls, everything is just on point. I feel like top four is our expectation here, at least, but I still feel like we can win this tournament because we are playing so well.

In the opening match here you played BIG on Inferno, which from my perspective seems like a weird map pick considering you didn't go for Overpass. Can you tell me about the veto there and losing to BIG in the end?

We went into the veto and we knew it was going to be either Inferno or Overpass and we knew that their Overpass is a bit weak, but we still felt like our Inferno was really good, so we decided to go with it. Honestly, in the match, it felt like they got really lucky rounds, we won a lot of gun rounds and stuff like that but then tabseN just punished us, he pushed a lot mid-round and it wasa GG. He won a couple of rounds that, in the end, were really crucial. I feel really good on Inferno and it was the right map, but maybe it wasn't the right day.

I think you kind of proved that now in the match against Renegades, you won Train and then took Inferno. Touching on the map pool, you picked Train here; is that shaping up to being your go-to map in this new lineup?

It all depends on the opponent because we knew that their Train was not so good and we knew how to exploit pretty much every aspect of their Train. We had a pretty big gameplan for Train and then we also won on Inferno. We just knew that they are pretty bad on Train and that we should win that for sure, and then the next two maps we should win also.