The Rocket League Championship Series is only seven weeks away. That leaves enough time for weekly team by team previews of the world’s best Rocket League teams. This series will act almost as a movie trailer for what to expect during Season 7 for each team.
The first preview will touch on European sweethearts, Mousesports.
Season 6 Results: 2-5 record, 6th in League Play, Loss to We Dem Girlz in round one of Regional Championship.
Off-season Movement: The team added Linus ‘al0t’ Möllergren (0.45 GPG, 0.24 APG, 0.83 SAPG) in favor of Kevin ‘Skyline’ Carvalho (0.50 GPG, 0.32 APG, 1.53 SAPG).
Off-season Performance: 16th-22nd WSOE Qualifiers, Group Stage DreamHack Leipzig.
Team MVP: Malik ‘Tigreee’ Hoffman
Realistic Team Goal: Avoid Relegation
Back in Season 5 when they were known as Servette the squad earned promotion after a 5-2 performance in the Rival Series. The squad added Tigreee from Team Secret after his team missed out on making the RLCS.
Staying in the RLCS after being promoted is no small feat. Mouz did just that in Season 6 after being promoted from the Rival Series in Season 5.
Since the promotion system began after Season 4, five teams have played a season in the RLCS after playing in the RLRS. Mouz and FlyQuest are the only two teams that have ever made top six in the top tier league.
Malik ‘Tigreee’ Hoffman – Image Courtesy of mousesports
Mouz did it by the skin of their teeth. The squad only avoided bottom two positioning because of game differential. They will continue in the RLCS because they didn’t get swept in a single series.
That being said, Tigree and Alex ‘Alex161’ Ernst both showed flashes of brilliance in wins against Fnatic and Renault Vitality. Skyline served as a solid vulture in front of net and was always solid but never spectacular.
In every other series, Mouz had to scrounge for every win. Alex161 finished dead last in goals per game last season and scored almost the exact same amount of goals as Skyline. He led the team in assists by two during their entire season. According to octane.gg’s rating system, Alex161 was the second worst player in the RLCS last season.
Who was the only player with a lower rating than Alex? Mouz’s new signing, al0t.
With the uncanny amount of roster movement that happened during the off-season, Mouz felt like they needed to make a move. They needed to upgrade at striker and brought in al0t. The move reflects Mouz’s perception of the ceiling for last season’s squad. They did not want to sit on their hands and get relegated.
Mouz finished second to last in goals per game in Europe last season, and al0t seems like a suitable means to that end. It’s impossible to talk about al0t and not mention his penchant for ridiculous redirects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rfq3Slzed4
Their best case scenario has a lot to do with al0t’s revival. Maybe after a rough Season 7, al0t has been on an unreal grind. He was obviously frustrated by his performance last season and put in the work to becoming a great player again.
The Swedish star returns to the RLCS with a vengeance and is back to the redirect scoring maniac of previous seasons. Tigreee and Alex161 adapt quickly with al0t’s aggressive play style or al0t adjusts well to their more conservative approach and the team flirts with making LAN.
Tigreee emerges as a star on a LAN playoff team. He leads the the team in saves, goals and assists and Mouz avoids relegation with a star player and a legendary striker to build around for the future.
Alex161 accepts his role as a defender and distributor and transforms into the poor man’s version of Torment for Cloud9.
The worst case scenario feels much more reasonable than the best case one. Staying up after promotion is a heavy task for any team. It’s especially tough given how much the league has improved since last season.
There are five or six teams that could legitimately contend for the EU title this season. That leaves Mouz on the outside looking in.
Skyline was fifth in the league in shots per game last season despite only knocking in 0.50 goals per game. His shooting percentage of 18.09 was third worst in Europe. The team needed to upgrade at striker. The question is, is al0t the right man for the job?
Linus ‘al0t’ Mollergen – Image courtesy of @al0t97 on twitter
Maybe, but the team’s worst case scenario revolves around him. If al0t continues his Season 6 decline and can’t mesh with his teammates, then Mouz is destined for regulation. Tigreee and Alex161 are not good enough right now to hide al0t when he has a rough game. al0t will have to revert back to his Season 4 form for this team to contend.
That doesn’t seem likely. al0t was bad last season. Like, the worst player in the entire league bad. Get swept by lowly Fnatic bad. It’s not unheard of for a player to turn things around (looking at you, Miztik), but depreciating players usually stay the course.
Mouz’s worst case scenario is that al0t won’t fit in to their game plan and they’ll finish Season 7 without winning a series. They’ll drop in the relegation playoffs, al0t retires, Tigreee leaves for another RLCS team and Alex161 watches the team disband.
TL;DR: Unless al0t goes back in time, relegation seems to be on the horizon for Mouz. Past-his-prime al0t may not be the answer to their goal scoring problem and Tigreee isn’t capable of carrying a team on his own yet.
Featured image courtesy of mousesports.
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