MOUZ choked a best-of-three on stage to a team that had never been on one.
In a high-pressure matchup, MOUZ failed to keep up mentally with their younger counterpart.
“Against MOUZ it’s always like this – we throw some rounds, they throw some rounds,” lauNX said in a post-match interview. “This time we were strong mentally, and we came out on top.”
FUT beat MOUZ 2-1 in the quarter-final of ESL Pro League Season 23, knocking out the main favorite for the event.
MOUZ had FUT on the ropes on their map pick of Dust2, being up 11-5. They let that go, allowing FUT to win 13-11, wasting a strong 23-14 performance from Jimpphat.
“We threw the map basically,” said Brollan about Dust2 in the post-match exit interview. “But they played better than us today for sure.”
On the third map of Mirage, it looked like FUT were about to crumble with a 12-3 lead. It got all the way to 12-11, until dziugss made the match-deciding play to push palace. He found two heads and made headway to the semi-final against his old organization.
From NAVI Junior to playing NAVI in EPL semi-final
With this win, FUT have now gone from being an academy roster to adding lauNX and beating a top five team in the world on-stage in less than a year.
For MOUZ it must be especially humbling, having experienced that same ascent. The core of MOUZ (torzsi, Jimpphat and xertioN) belonged to MOUZ’s academy project, until they made it to the main team and won tournaments such as ESL Pro League.
Now, they are crumbling against the younger and inexperienced versions of themselves, even under the kind of pressure that means FUT should crumble.
“We have been struggling a lot in the playoffs, when it actually matters,” Brollan said. “Today is another day where we don’t go through, […] but shit happens.”
The elephant in the room: xertioN’s progressive dropoff
Since MOUZ removed siuhy in 2025, they have maintained consistent results, but suffered from the fading of their main star player: xertioN.
| xertioN | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
| Rating on LAN vs Top 20 | 1.12 | 1.08 | 1.05 |
“Mentally, we were insane today,” lauNX
Though Jimpphat’s dropoff with Brollan’s switch to IGL is well-known, the decay of xertioN, an exciting talent in 2024, is less studied.
From being one of the most exciting openers in the world with a 1.11 terrorist-side rating in 2024, he has now fallen to 0.96 on T-side.
He only succeeds at 31.8% of his opening duel attempts on T-side, not on par with some of the best players in his role – not close to himself less than two years ago. In 2024, he had 42.8% success rate on T-side.
FUT will get a crack at their old masters tomorrow
In a dream semi-final matchup, FUT will get a chance to beat makazze, their old teammate, after he got the call up to the main NAVI roster.
Will they crumble against the weight of NAVI’s name and power? Tune in tomorrow at 19.00 CET to find out.
