MOUZ Bench Bymas

MOUZ have announced a big roster change on Friday, August 26, when the international Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team benched Aurimas “Bymas” Pipiras in favor of Dorian “xertioN” Berman. With the recent roster change, the MOUZ roster now features three academy players.

MOUZ announced the benching of Bymas, who was removed from the active CS:GO lineup after spending nearly two years with the team. The 19-year-old Lithuanian CS:GO pro joined MOUZ on August 2020 as a rookie with limited experience competing at the highest level.

Bymas started his career in January 2020 with Demolition Crew and has served as a temporary stand-in for FaZe Clan between May and August 2020, when he made a name for himself as a promising young talent.

Even though Bymas hasn’t won any big trophies at FaZe, he has helped the team place third at DreamHack Masters Spring 2020: Europe and BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 European Finals.

Since joining mousesports, Bymas has achieved some success, helping his team finish runner-up at DreamHack Masters Winter 2020: Europe and reach BLAST Premier: Fall 2020.

In 2021, Bymas and mousesports continued posting strong results, namely winning Snow Sweet Snow #3 and Flashpoint Season 3. Besides the two titles, mousesports also finished top-four at cs_summit 7 and have qualified for PGL Major Stockholm 2021, in which they ended in 12th-14th place.

The 2022 season wasn’t nearly as successful for MOUZ, who did not win a single tournament title. Their best result came in July when MOUZ placed top-six at Intel Extreme Masters XVII – Cologne.

Throughout his stint with MOUZ, Bymas has averaged a 1.04 performance rating and 1.03 over the last three months. Still, despite his individual input, MOUZ decided to bench the Lithuanian in favour of a one-year younger XertioN, who joins MOUZ’s main lineup from the academy team.

The young Israeli player was promoted to MOUZ’s main lineup on Friday, filling in the void left behind by Bymas. XertioN also extended his contract with the organization and is said to attend the pre-ESL Pro League bootcamp with the team.

Although still a fairly unproven talent, xertioN has been making waves as a part of MOUZ NXT, with who he won four WePlay Academy League titles. During his stay at MOUZ NXT, who xertioN joined in June 2021, he has averaged an impressive 1.14 performance rating and was a key player in the squad, which peaked at no.26 in the global CS:GO rankings at the end of 2021.

“I’m so excited to share with you all the next step in my career, I will from now on be playing on the MOUZ main team,” said xertioN.

“It’s been a long-time goal of mine since joining the NXT project, and I will give my absolute best to help my awesome new teammates and MOUZ reach new heights and goals!”

At MOUZ, xertioN will team up with his former teammates in Jon “JDC” de Castro and Adam “torzsi” Torzas, who were a part of MOUZZ NXT before they got promoted to the main lineup in January and March 2020.

Although the addition of xertioN makes a lot of sense for MOUZ, the move comes at the cost of having to bench Bymas. However, it remains to be seen what will happen with the 19-year-old, as he has yet to unveil his future plans.

For now, Bymas is an inactive member of MOUZ and is likely able to explore his options. Alternatively, Bymas could be sent to the academy roster to fill xertioN’s vacant spot.

XertioN will debut for MOUZ at ESL Pro League Season 16, slated to begin on September 14.