The great Dota 2 roster shuffle continues, with both teams and players alike announcing moves and signings all over the place. Hamburg-based esports organization MOUZ is one of the latest to join the mix, removing four out of the five players that signed with them back in May this year.

MOUZ Dota 2 cut almost entire roster, replace all but Seleri

To that end, Kiyal “Kami” Tayirov, Azel “Abed” Yusop, Nicholas “zeal” Lim Eng Han, and Marcel “Ekki” Hołowienko have all flown the coop. For the last two in particular, they left in the middle of July, while Kami and Abed left today, September 20th. Replacing them are Remco “Crystallis” Arets, Yeik “MidOne” Nai Zheng, Miroslav “BOOM” Bičan, and Daniyal “yamich” Lazebnyy.

Team captain and first player to join the modern version of MOUZ Melchior “Seleri” Hillenkamp remains on the roster, which makes it pretty clear that the organization wants to build around him in particular. No surprises there, as Seleri is a very known quantity in the Western European region, and one of the most successful players between the years 2023 and 2024, as a former member of Gaimin Gladiators.

The mice come out to play

While the previous iteration of this roster didn’t really amount to much, having failed to qualify for The International 2025 (TI14) out of the WEU qualifiers, this new look MOUZ actually holds quite a bit of promise.

Crystallis, who is being loaned by Tundra Esports to MOUZ for the upcoming competitive season, put some more experience under his belt this year — which should serve him well as he continues his career. I personally don’t think he’s that great of a carry player, but if he knows how to take losses on the chin and bettering himself despite failing, he could very well improve in the role.

But more than anyone else in the new roster, no one is more interesting than yamich. He proved himself as one of the most underrated support players of the previous season standing in for Nigma Galaxy at DreamLeague Season 26, and quite frankly he was one of the biggest reasons they finished in seventh place there — despite the typical Nigma tendency to melt down mid-tournament. I personally am most excited to see how he develops under MOUZ.

Seleri is healthy for you

I mentioned that Seleri will stay with MOUZ as they welcome the four new players in, which is great to see as he is an amazing player and a great leader on the big stage. Having won so many major tournaments since joining Gaimin Gladiators in 2022 (and then leaving earlier this year), Seleri has seen plenty of action at the highest level.

GG Seleri ESL One Birmingham
Copyright: Adam Lakomy, ESL FACEIT Group

Not that the lineup is otherwise composed of young, unproven talent that would need Seleri’s guiding hand, but it never hurts to have someone like him calling the shots out there. Speaking of talent, though, the new members definitely have more of that than the outgoing ones, with the possible exception of Abed versus MidOne. Seleri will surely appreciate having more firepower to work with this time around.