The MongolZ won 1win Private Club Season 2 with Yesuntumur “nin9” Gantulga in their lineup, beating PARIVISION 3-0 in the grand final after working through the lower bracket and ending a 14-month trophy drought, according to HLTV’s post-match interview with the new signing.
The 28-year-old said the move was something he wanted, and that he has already shifted his responsibilities to suit what the team needed from him. He described the adjustment as ongoing, with the roster still sorting out roles as it goes.
The win mattered because it was The MongolZ’s debut event with nin9, and it arrived after a stretch in which the team had lost its previous tournaments. Nin9 said he expected the organization might make a change, then spoke with the team and got the deal done.
A title run built on quick fixes
The MongolZ’s route to the trophy was not clean. Nin9 said the team did not have much practice before the event, so the players were correcting mistakes as they moved through each map rather than solving everything in advance. He said that was especially true during the early part of the run, when the team was still finding its footing together.
“We were making mistakes, and we were just fixing them on the spot,” nin9 said.
He pointed to the match against BIG as an example of how that process worked in practice. The MongolZ lost to BIG first, then beat them later in the event, and nin9 said Cache in particular exposed more errors than the other maps. Even so, he said the team had no real downtime to rework everything because it also had to prepare for other opponents.
That left the group to rely on the time it had spent together before the event began. Nin9 said the team arrived about a week early, which gave them some room to prepare before play started. He said the rest of the tournament was then a matter of building confidence map by map while trying not to repeat the same mistakes.
Even after lifting the title, nin9 did not present the performance as finished or polished. He said the team had won despite still making plenty of mistakes, and that there were many details left to clean up before the next event.
How nin9 fits into The MongolZ
Nin9 said he was happy to join The MongolZ and believed the team needed a different type of piece than the players it had before. He said he adjusted his own roles for that reason and is still learning how best to fit the roster’s structure.
He also said the experience of playing with this version of the team has been easier than he expected in terms of nerves. Nin9 described himself as older than most of the players around him and said that helps him stay calmer, while his teammates make it easier for him to focus on his own game.
On the team as a whole, he said the early results already show the lineup can work. He did not call the performances flawless, but said the side is winning and has been “playing decent.” In his view, that is enough to get results while the team keeps improving around the edges.
That belief also shaped how he saw the move before it happened. Nin9 said he had confidence that he could be the part The MongolZ needed to win games, and that confidence helped drive the conversation that brought him into the squad.
“I had that confidence in me that I could be the piece they needed to win games,” he said.
The new title also came with cobrazera back on the roster. Nin9 said the team already knew the player from before, and that the current pieces are working well enough to produce wins even while the group is still ironing out details. He said the roster can make this work because it is already getting the job done.
VRS pressure and a crowded calendar
The MongolZ also entered the event with some uncertainty around the Valve Regional Standings. Nin9 said the situation became complicated after teams changed regions and more tournaments were added, which altered the picture after people initially thought the team was safe. Even so, he said the squad did not feel heavy pressure from the ranking situation during the event itself.
He did acknowledge that the standings matter for future invites. The MongolZ have fallen below the top 50, and that affects what comes next for the team in terms of invitations and seeding. With PGL Masters Bucharest and IEM Beijing coming up immediately after this event, the team has very little time to slow down and work on its mistakes.
“Hopefully we can win the next tournaments,” nin9 said.
He added that the turnaround will be difficult because the next events begin so soon, and because other teams will have time to study The MongolZ’s demos. Still, he said he thinks the roster can manage the workload and keep building on the title run.
Asked whether the victory gave him confidence that the lineup can recover its position, nin9 said yes. He said the team still has a lot to improve even after winning the event, but believes there is room to get better than it was in the final.
For The MongolZ, the immediate picture is clear: a first title with nin9, a long-awaited trophy after 14 months, and a tight schedule that will test how quickly the team can turn a short-term win into something more durable.
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