Crystallis on Dark Carnival: "Honestly, I think it's a step backwards"

Kerry MOUZ Remco 'Crystallis' Arets, in an interview for the Hotspawn portal, spoke about his feelings after being eliminated from the Esports World Cup 2026, talked about his pool of heroes, and also shared his opinion about the Dark Carnival event.

It always sucks to lose, but on the other hand, we didn't have high expectations from this tournament. We didn’t think that now we would come and defeat everyone, and then: “What happened?” It was more like: “Okay, we lost.” We roughly understood what to expect. So there was no particular reason for disappointment.

[This was, in fact, your last match at a tier-1 tournament this season. Have you already started to reconsider your plans? ] No idea yet. We don't know what will happen next - we'll see how everything turns out in the next few weeks. Nothing is clear now. There are almost no major tournaments ahead, so perhaps we will return to grinding again. I don't know yet.

[You had a wide pool of heroes at this tournament. How do you perceive this yourself? ] At this tournament I just went back to what I always played: Razor, Monkey King, Bloodseeker. These are my three main characters that I am always good at, no matter the circumstances.

During the qualifiers for The International 2026, we had our own ideas for certain characters, but for some reason we just couldn't win them. At some point, this strategy no longer seemed to work. Then we chose 1-2 heroes, I played Razor or Monkey King, and the results got better. Probably because with these characters I always understand what needs to be done, no matter how bad things go.

But this is the difficulty, because we were constantly switching from one idea to another. We had a whole bootcamp where we worked on strategies for the TI qualifiers with a certain set of heroes, and then we had to abandon it because it just stopped working. Already during the qualifications, we completely changed our approach and returned to my signature heroes. And at this tournament we again decided to bet on them, because it was with them that our chances of winning looked the highest.

[You're the most successful professional player on Bloodseeker, aren't you? ] I think yes. I hope it stays that way, even after this tournament. I had one loss that may have hurt me. The point is that the hero is really bad now, and I seem to be the only one who understands how he can work. So I could take it a lot more often. I don't think this character has been meta in the last few years, and even when he's not meta, he still keeps getting nerfed. It seems to me that people who make patches no longer understand what is happening. It's a fun statistic, but it didn't help me win.

[ What do you think of Dark Carnival? Would you like a Battle Pass instead? ] Honestly, I think this is a step backwards. Crownfall - I appreciate that they released so much free content, the minigames were fun too. That's not to say it was bad. But in my opinion, the first two Cavern Crawls were absolutely amazing - I really enjoyed them. Aghanim's Labyrinth was also a very cool and truly unique mode.

As for the Battle Pass, I wouldn’t want it to come out now, because I didn’t make it to The International and I won’t earn anything from it. So I don't want to see him now. He shouldn't be released now.

I liked what happened before more. Especially the big game modes that were really special. I really liked them. Although, maybe something similar will appear at the end of Dark Carnival. As was the case with Crownfall: the Vampire Survivors style mode was quite interesting. But overall, I like the Battle Pass format better. This is much more interesting. Even if you look at it from the tournament perspective, huge prize pools always attract more viewers. And, of course, when you compete at the championship yourself and can earn big money, that’s also great.

MOUZ was defeated by LGD Gaming in the first round of the survival stage of the Esports World Cup 2026 and finished the tournament in 13th-16th place.