After upset win over MOUZ, Grim responds: Take it one match at a time and keep winning

NRG stunned MOUZ in their opening match at StarSeries Fall, getting off to a winning start while also picking up a valuable 129 VRS points, an important boost in their push for Major qualification. After the match, Grim spoke to HLTV and said the win meant a lot, but stressed that the team cannot afford to get complacent.

Q: Grim, NRG beat MOUZ on the opening day of StarSeries Fall. Talk to me about this win. I spoke with nitr0 yesterday, and he said any win here is a good one, but I imagine this one must feel especially sweet.

Grim: Yeah, it feels great, because this probably gave us around 130 VRS points, which is huge for our Major prospects. MOUZ are obviously a very strong team, and I think they’re top two in VRS right now. But we’ve been playing really well in scrims, so we told ourselves: “If we play like we do in scrims, we should be fine.”

Q: You said this win is a big boost for your confidence. If the main goal was to get a win on the board, you've done that now. What are your expectations for the matches ahead?

Grim: Honestly, it's just about taking it one match at a time. This win is huge, probably the best win we could have gotten here, because they're top two in the VRS rankings. So if we can beat MOUZ, we can beat anyone here. We just have to keep it going.

Q: Let's talk about Inferno — have scrims in NA been a bit rough?

Grim: Our scrims in NA have definitely been a bit tough. We had never really been tested on Inferno. Inferno was the one map where we stayed undefeated through that entire month of scrims in NA. So we definitely have to go back, review it, and see what adjustments we can make differently when we're up against a top European team that is strong on the map. Overall, though, it was a great win, and we really needed it to boost everyone's confidence.

Q: That Dust2 could actually have been a much more comfortable win. You could have built a bigger lead, but you lost a lot of 1v1 clutch situations in the first half. When MOUZ were trying to claw their way back, can you talk about what was happening at that point?

Grim: For a moment, I really did get a little nervous, because honestly I felt like we should have been up 12-0, and you know what happened last time we were up 12-0. But looking at it another way, losing those clutch situations was actually a good thing. Honestly, we should have won all three of those clutch situations.

The only round we really lost cleanly was the last one, when we had rifles. So that should have been an 11-1 half, but I kept telling the guys—and everyone agreed—"Boys, we're the much stronger team right now. They only won a few clutch situations off luck, so let's just keep playing our game and see what happens."

Their CT side was a little scary. I remember they won a round with a Galil against four Glocks, which was really rough, but you have to reset mentally. That's CS — anything can happen.

Q: I see you're wearing a Complexity cap. You've reunited with hallzerk here — how does that feel? You two played together on Complexity for a long time before.

Grim: Yeah, honestly, what happened with Complexity was rough, but I really like hallzerk. He's a great teammate, a good person, and he always brings a lot of energy and positivity in-game. When I recommended hallzerk to NRG, I said, "I think this guy can take us to new heights." Obviously, we had limited practice time at first and lost in the EWC Open Qualifier, but now we've gotten some practice in, we've beaten MOUZ, and that feels really great.

Obviously, we can't take this as proof that we're already one of the best teams in the world. We still need to keep grinding and keep beating the teams in front of us. But honestly, he's a really great player and an important addition to our roster.