Surprise name wins first MLG Counter Strike qualifier

The first qualified team for MLG X Games Aspen turned out to be quite the surprise.

MouseSpaz triumphed in the finals of MLG’s first North American qualifier for their inaugural Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament, defeated Torqued in a two games to none sweep in their best-of-three series.

While both games in the series were competitive, MouseSpaz was never seriously threatened. The team held a halftime lead in both games before cruising to victories by respective margins of 16-11 and 16-10.

MouseSpaz were slight underdogs against Torqued, the team formed by Joshua “Steel” Nissan after his departure from iBUYPOWER. But MouseSpaz had already overcome tremendous odds in the previous round.

It was there in the semifinals that MouseSpaz managed to upset the heavy favorites in the qualifying tournament, iBUYPOWER, who had recently built upon their roster with the addition of former Cloud9 player Spencer “Hiko” Martin.

As threatening as iBUYPOWER had looked in the short time since that move, MouseSpaz were not intimidated. The team beat iBUYPOWER comfortably in the first game of their series before winning a tight second game on the last round of regulation to produce a victorious sweep.

MouseSpaz’s efforts in the qualifier were highlighted by the play of the playmaking Tarik Celik and the team’s designated sniper, Peter “ptr” Gurney.

The finals loss will be a tough pill to swallow for Torqued, who fought their way all the way to the last series of the qualifier only to come up just short.

Other notable upsets in the qualifier included a quarterfinals victory for Lunatik, who handed a series loss to Denial that directly led to that team making the most recent in a series of roster changes.

But Torqued, iBUYPOWER and Denial will all have another opportunity to qualifier for X Games Aspen.

MLG has been set to run two qualifiers in the North American region. With the first having been won by MouseSpaz, only one spot now remains for the aforementioned teams and others who would like to attend MLG’s first foray into Global Offensive, and potentially get some screen time on ESPN.

Image via MouseSpaz/Facebook