Esports News UK spoke to Dennis ‘sycrone’ Nielsen after Mouz’s elimination at the hands of FaZe at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025.

The loss evoked the worst of Mouz on the stage, as they fell to a brutal 0-2 loss in the quarter-finals of AWPer Ádám ‘torzsi’ Torzsás’s home Major.

sycrone discussed his reflections on the match, the emotional leadership with the roster, and what he would like to see change in the future to allow Mouz to go further.

🇭🇺 Thank you. pic.twitter.com/ZVOGJSUYxb

— StarLadder CS2 (@StarLadder_CS) December 12, 2025

Esports News UK interview with sycrone at the StarLadder Budapest Major

What are your first feelings coming out of the match?

Disappointment, feeling like we weren’t on today. We, of course, had a bad day, but I also feel that FaZe came to play. I think they were very strong individually.

I think all around, they had a good approach. In Counter-Strike, it goes fast if you have two bad halves, and then you don’t deserve to win, right?

That’s some of my initial feelings.

On Nuke, it was a very fast start from FaZe. That kind of pace, was that something you were expecting?

The type of rounds they played was definitely something we were expecting.

I think something that they did really well was that they used the crowd and the noise to mask really fast rounds on Nuke.

Maybe it surprised us, especially on the A site, and we were a bit out of position, and we weren’t organised yet, and I think it was sloppy from our end to allow that.

We tried to zone in during the half quite quickly, ‘Okay, we need to organise better on A and Ludwig [brollan] also with our rotations, make sure we’re reinforcing the right moments.’

Then we would win a round, but FaZe brought it right back in the next round.

It was tough to really get going with a bad start, not winning the first by pistol or first buy round.

You’re already down, and don’t have money going and as soon as we win one round, they snap right back, and it was it was a tough half.

You came back, you briefly led on your own T side, but those rounds are so close that once you started losing rounds, your money was broken. Do you have any kind of feeling about you know whether you could have won those rounds more cleanly to prevent FaZe from kind of getting a foothold in that second half?

It’s a fair question. To begin with, on that T side, we just spoke about how after this map, we’ll have to play Inferno.

We need to get the T side going, we need to get into the game overall, and we need to trust what we worked on and prepared in the practice room, and also focus on practice in itself.

That was our initial focus, and you’re right, once it becomes 9-9, it’s a tight game, and the rounds were close.

But, I think with the way we’re playing on the CT side, for us to even win rounds, we had to, at that point, win some close rounds.

It’s not going to be clean rounds; it’s too much of a shift in the level of play and in the game.

Nuke could probably indeed have gone either way.

“There’s a lot of development with Ludwig’s [brollan’s] weaknesses on a leadership side, on an emotional side, but also a lot of strengths in terms of the technical side.” – sycrone on brollan’s leadership

Inferno was a different story. It was very one-way traffic, even from the first round, you make the right call. It’s only frozen on the site, but then you can’t convert that round. Did you feel like your players weren’t really on the server?

I think frozen also played that situation really well. He recognises that we’re going to run him down, maybe he heard xertioN jump from CT, he’s very aware of that.

He kills him, and we don’t manage to run ruins and take him fast enough, our bomb is a little bit disorganised.

You’re right, I think if it’s a game where we’re on, we would kill frozen there in that moment, we would have CT space, we have ruins space, we have the bomb down, it’s a different scenario.

But you got to give it to them, they’re on fire individually, and they also came very, very prepared and tactically I think they played a good game.

The perfect pistol round by @FROZENNcs and @Twistzz 🥶🥶#BudapestMajor pic.twitter.com/FcNLEei03g

— StarLadder CS2 (@StarLadder_CS) December 12, 2025

It’s a pattern that you come into these playoff games, xertioN has a slow start, and then you don’t kind of have the solutions after that. What kind of things are you working on to make those scenarios more workable for you when you know xertioN is struggling?

You’re right, we’ve been in this scenario a couple of times.

Something we overall talk about in the team is that the closer you are to the top, the harder of the wind also blows.

You don’t see this out there as a fan or a spectator, but behind the scenes, we do a lot of work on the mental side, we prepare certain code words and triggers to get back to a good spot.

We talk about it as a team, we highlight our fears, and we also develop the mental side of our players.

I think, to be honest, we do quite a good job of getting around to it and finding the progression.

If you look at it, I think also a guy like xertioN, even though today wasn’t great from the team, maybe not from him, not from me, there has been progression.

He’s also had games where he’s come alive, where he’s pulled us over the line, even in the stage moments.

It’s a constant battle for progression, to keep improving, keep developing, and we’re still on that path.

“Maybe you’re fishing a little bit for [roster] changes, but I don’t think it’s the moment to talk about it.” – sycrone on potential changes to Mouz

On broadcast, we got some comms from torzsi, encouraging the team. With brollan being a more technical IGL, where else is that leadership coming from, and would you like to see more of that elsewhere in the team?

You bring up a good point. Definitely in our team, someone who brings a lot of energy is torzsi, I think maybe he’s the best in the world at it, or he’s at least very elite.

brollan is more of a calculated, calm guy, which I think can also be a very good trait in a captain.

That he is composed, that he has an idea already, that he doesn’t get too flustered about the moment. You can trust the next call he will make.

For sure, the emotional intelligence and being an all-around well-rounded leader is something we work on and you also have to notice what your strengths are and play into that.

So there’s a lot of development with Ludwig’s [brollan’s] weaknesses on a leadership side, on an emotional side, but also a lot of strengths in terms of the technical side.

You talk about the tactical things, and also his calmness.

I think this season he’s progressed just to say tremendously in terms of being a leader, as well as talking for the group, taking responsibility, leading speaking up in front of everyone.

You’ve shown you can beat everyone, but you’ve not been able to put that all together at a big Tier 1 event. What would you like to see change in the future to bring you to that next level?

I want to see us still committed to what we do, to still progress to still have belief in each other, believe in the team.

Then, at some point, we have to break through; we have to make it happen.

This is the one change I want to see is that we make that one win, and I believe that once you get that first win, everything becomes a lot easier.

It’s possible, maybe you’re fishing a little bit for [roster] changes, but I don’t think it’s the moment to talk about it.

We’ll have to see what the future holds.