Heroic Used a Non-standard Strategy to Win Map Veto Against MOUZ

Heroic captain and sharpshooter Kasper cadiaN Möller discussed the team's trick to win their match against MOUZ in the ESL Pro League Season 17 Group B Final.

Yesterday, the last matches of Group B ended, MOUZ and Heroic clashed in the final of the top bracket. The Danes won the game with a score of 2-0, and this victory seemed to be on duty, but few people noticed a critical detail at the stage of picks and map bans.

Heroic got MOUZ to ban Anubis

Heroic and MOUZ have a common permaban - the Anubis, which both teams do not play. Therefore, the team, which will have the first ban, received an automatic advantage because it could ban any map that was inconvenient for itself. Heroic thought about this in advance and prepared for a situation where MOUZ would be the first to ban the map. CadiaN talked about it live on ESL Pro League Season 17.

We looked at who is looking for [practice] on Anubis. Rooster, an Australian team, they were looking for Anubis. And you know, sometimes people of the same nationality communicate. We thought, "Maybe they will talk to dexter [MOUZ captain]?" We decided to play the game with Rooster on Anubis <…> We beat them hard *** [outplayed]. And maybe they said to dexter, "They're playing Anubis. They're training it."

Kasper cadiaN Möller

And judging by the veto map, that's what happened. MOUZ was the first to ban the map and removed Anubis from the pool instead of Inferno, one of the strongest in Heroic. As a result, the Danes took Inferno and easily won the match.

Related: Movistar Riders advance to EPL S17 playoffs, Heroic straight into quarterfinals

Mind games in CS:GO

With the disclosure of this strategy, it became clear that mind games in CS:GO occur not only on the server but also outside it. Heroic brainstormed how to get MOUZ to leave a convenient map for them in the pool. The scheme was similar to detective stories, but in the end, it worked.

This story shows how much information we don't know from inside esports. Therefore, even such an obvious stage as map veto is complicated to predict. It is worth just looking at the statistics of the teams on the maps, and all will become clear. However, similar strategies are the next level of map veto.