To put it plainly, Counter-Strike rostermania was a disappointment. Although we were promised a number of big moves, very few of those materialised, with rumoured changes to Falcons and MOUZ being among those that didn’t happen.

The two teams were undoubtedly two of the best throughout 2025, but their failure to make a change will likely see them struggle to build on their success this year. Both teams have hit a plateau, and both teams needed a change to push past that glass ceiling.

This is especially true given that they were both overtaken at the end of the year by FURIA, and Spirit also made changes in an attempt to regain the lead. Factor in that FaZe and NAVI also closed out 2025 in far stronger positions than they were previously, and we might instead be looking at Falcons and MOUZ teams that begin to fall behind in 2026.

MOUZ Need Change to Win Trophies

The Counter-Strike community is fond of criticizing MOUZ. Whether it’s for their lack of aura or the fact that they can only make it to the semi-finals of events, people are always happy to abuse them rather than commend them for their impressive results, regardless of whether it ends with a trophy or not.

But what if it doesn’t need to be that way?

MOUZ have two glaring issues. The first is that Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo hasn’t been the same player since the arrival of Lotan “Spinx” Giladi, and the second is that their T side win rate came in seventh out of the top 10 teams last year. Given that MOUZ already lacks the superstars that FURIA, Vitality, Spirit, and Falcons all possess, these are two big problems that prevent them from going even further. 

There are multiple ways to approach this issue. The first would be accepting that you likely can’t have Jimpphat and Spinx on the same team, and benching Jimpphat due to Spinx’s star power, making him the more stable figure on the roster. 

From that point, finding a replacement would be pretty simple. Oldrick “PR” Novy and Justinas “jL” Lekavicius are both players who would undoubtedly bring firepower upgrades on Jimpphat, and neither would affect the role balance of the team too much due to their versatility. 

Alternatively, MOUZ could look for a change in leadership. If they were to do so, the top candidate should be Justin “JT” Theodosiu of Passion UA. The South African now has plenty of experience due to his years with Complexity, and although results have sometimes been hard to come by, given the firepower of the rosters he’s been presented with, he has always managed to put together an impressive system that can punch above its weight. 

There is also a third option, one that involves benching both Brollan and Jimpphat. That third option would allow for MOUZ to sign both JT and one of PR or jL, addressing both the leadership and firepower issues in one swoop. They could do so and promote their CT caller Dorian “xertioN” Berman to IGL, then sign one of PR or jL and a figure like Martin “stavn” Lund to form a new aggressive pack with xertioN at the tip. 

Whatever they do, 2025 should have made it abundantly clear that a change is required. No one wants to be a perennial semi-finalist, but MOUZ simply do not have the capacity to push on from that in their current form. Whether it’s firepower, leadership, or both, addressing problems within the team can push them towards gold.

Role Balance is Falcons’ Kryptonite

No one could blame Falcons for bringing in Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin. The young Russian was the second prodigious talent to emerge from the Spirit Academy in as many years, and with him playing similar roles to Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, it was always likely that he would seek to become a star elsewhere.

The signing has also been a resounding success. As the aggressive star of the team, kyousuke has 1.16 rating in the past six months, which is incredibly high given it’s his rookie year.

However, signing kyousuke did create a problem in the team. In Nikola “NiKo” Kovac and Rene “TeSeS” Madsen, Falcons already had two naturally aggressive players on the team. Whilst NiKo is a very versatile player and has been able to adapt, TeSeS is not, and his dismal 0.95 rating in the past three months is now a serious sticking point for them.

To put that into even more daming context: Falcons’ IGL, Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski has a 0.99 rating in the past six months.

The Saudi organization are fast becoming proof that you can have as many stars as you want, but if your role balance is poor and limiting those stars’ output, you still aren’t going to lift trophies consistently. 

So how do they address the problem?

Ironically, given the first section of this article, the obvious answer is Jimpphat. With how much Jimpphat struggled in 2025 compared to 2024, it’s hard to imagine the Finn is happy on MOUZ. There’s also been plenty of rumours about him joining Falcons ever since the org got serious in CS, and reportedly, a move only failed to materialise in the past because Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov had not yet joined the team.

Another solid option would be Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy, although he might be harder to sign due to his status as NAVI’s franchise player. b1t is one of the best anchors in the world, and also comfortable as a more passive element on the T side than TeSeS is. A player who perfectly fits Falcons’ transfer policy of signing the biggest stars imaginable, the firepower upgrade he would bring makes it hard to imagine Falcons not becoming dominant with him on the team.

Either way, TeSeS has to go, and it’s actually quite baffling that he isn’t gone already. He’s a player now completely wasted within the Falcons system, and it’s only going to continue to lead to disappointment for as long as he stays on the team. A true passive star is needed, and b1t or Jimpphat are the perfect solutions to that problem.