Mauisnake at BLAST Rivals: “Zweih is clearly the bigger problem in my eyes than Chopper-Hally”

BLAST Rivals Hong Kong playoffs just kicked off in the AsiaWorld Arena today with some amazing games. I got to speak to Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg about Asian CS, NA CS and his take on Team Spirit right now.

How has Hong Kong been treating you so far?

Mauisnake: It’s been great. I can’t complain. Went out for dim sum at Tim Ho Wan. That was a great experience. Food was fantastic. Crowds already filling up here. We got 5,000 people on a quarterfinal day. Saturday, Sunday are supposed to be 10,000 tickets that are sold, so if even 80% of them show up, it’s going to be massive.

Saumya: So many organisers have been turning to these Asian countries for tournaments.

How do you think that is going to impact the CS scene here in the coming years?

Mauisnake: It feels like we’re already getting a much bigger fan base in terms of just what – I think Chinese fan have gotten, their fan base has gotten way stronger. The amount of people that are here wearing jerseys, I feel like what last year we had Singapore. That was fantastic in terms of the turnout there. Just lines and lines of people asking for signatures, photos, staying every single game, didn’t matter who was playing. So I feel like the emphasis on the Asia region is actually already paying off.

I think there was a little bit of hesitation from some. I know that technically there might not be the same PC Bang culture in China that there is in say, Korea, or something like that, but I think that this is going to lead to further growth in the space.

Saumya: Now, talking about the teams, I want to start with Furia because a lot of people have been crediting Fallen for his, like being one of the best IGLs so far. But sure, Molodoy and YEKINDAR are great picks, but he has been a part of Furia for like two or three years now and the system hasn’t been working well before.

So what do you think has changed for them?

Mauisnake: I feel like all they needed was a shot in the arm in terms of just firepower for the CT side. T side Fallen calling, people even want to go back and look at the stats. Always actually top 10 team in terms of their T sides. It was the CT side sides that were always bad because Fallen wasn’t actually the best AWPer anymore.

Skulls and Chelo were just, I’d say, mediocre per their roles. I know people really like them, but honestly they just weren’t really delivering. And for. In terms of. In terms of what they’ve got now with Molodoy, with YEKINDAR, I feel like it’s just a guy that is going to be the first in. So that is very clearly outlined. Whereas before I think the roles were kind of shared in terms of responsibility, like and Chelo, unfortunately just not as good as YEKINDAR. And on the other hand, Molodoy is just sensational. Dude is a top five AWPer definitively today. If people want to put him in their top three. I’m not complaining off of what I’ve seen from him lately, especially at Chengdu. So just getting better players does so much.

Also to kind of a weird sub, sub note I guess here is just that they’ve talked about or KSCERATO and Yuriih have talked about that switching to English is easier than speaking Portuguese for Counter Strike. I’m. I’m not. I’m not an expert on how it is to speak in Portuguese and play in language, but they just look so on top of each other in terms of comms.

Now I want to know about NA CS right now because I think this is the first time or maybe in a long time that we don’t have a single player or a single team in top 10. So what do you think of that?

Mauisnake: I guess what ELIGE and Twistzz would probably be the closest right now. 

Saumya: Yeah FaZe is like right 12th right now and then I think.. 

Mauisnake:  Liquid’s like 15 or 16. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, okay to hear that. It’s the first time there is no NA player in the top 10 teams at all. Bit of a shame. I mean, I don’t think we have the. Right now the player base is definitely still smaller than Europe. I don’t think the ecosystem is big enough right now. I think a lot of, there’s a lot of different aspects I could tackle this from. I don’t know where you want to go with it or what you want me to talk about because I could go with the, the fact that Valorant is just ever more appealing. I feel like in general the Counter Strike as a career opportunity just doesn’t necessarily make sense for a lot of people too. So I think there’s just a lot of other pathways in life that a lot of people in America are getting into than just trying to become an esports pro.

Saumya: How does the future look for them? Like for NA Cs?

Mauisnake:  How does it change? 

How does the future look for NA Cs?

Mauisnake: Oh, how does the future look? Probably pretty grim. I don’t really see. I think that what is nice, at least from my experience lately with Counter Strike and playing in North America. I’ve been playing in ESEA Main for the last three seasons. I just play with friends for fun and I know that I’m, and my friends are pretty seasoned players, but I feel like sometimes the competition in that league is lower than it was when I was playing ESEA Main like six years ago. Things have changed a little bit since then, but that does catch me off guard.

I’m kind of,  I’m kind of surprised at what I see in that league. But all in all, I think. I don’t really think that there’s like the brightest or best answer for this one that’s going to make people happy. I think the only saving, maybe small silver lining here is that because Fragadelphia is attracting more European teams to come to North America more often, we don’t really have that ESL pro league circuit going on anymore in North America.

We have maybe what IEM Atlanta next year, but it’s only a brief window always when European teams are in North America to help them practise and get, you know, more, more reps and everything. Because those European teams, they have to play the, you know, second, third, fourth best teams in the world or in North America, that is. And so that those are like little, little boosts for them, but it’s just not enough, consistently enough.

Saumya: Now, I hate to come back to the same topic again.

I saw your Twitter and you did say that Zweih has not been playing well even in a proven system. But don’t you think the system changes when you change two players?

Mauisnake: Definitely. Definitely. I feel like the way that Spirit were playing, I think that there’s fair criticism for the calls on Spirit. There’s always been fair criticism with how it’s been going there. The angle I had with that is. Well, to answer your question, yes, the system does need to change lightly as this game plays out. It really feels like it has changed enough and in the right way to enable tN1R.

I just feel like in general, even watching Zweih on CT sides, he just. It doesn’t even matter what a T side system is. He needs to be a better individual. And what on nuke A anchor, 0.85 rating last three months. CT side, like that’s not a system thing. That’s just him being bad on the position. So. And there’s multiple positions where he’s on CT side beneath a 1.0. And yeah, it’s a new team and everything like that, but it’s clear that the jump from him being on Nemiga to this team is too big of one for him.

I mean, he’s young, it’s his first season with the team. I’m not saying to cut him immediately or anything like that. The reason I ended up making that tweet was more like if I’m identifying a bigger problem today, Chopper Holly versus Zweih. Zweih is clearly the bigger problem in my eyes than Chopper-Hally. And so as he gets more in tune with how he needs to play at this level, then they’ll get better, too, right?