21 demos, 2 tournaments: did m0NESY's mouse switch help his reaction time?
Found interview where m0NESY said he switched mouse to Logitech PRO X2 SUPERSTRIKE
Wanted to see if 30ms click latency drop actually matters. I had a way to test it without theorycrafting: m0NESY switched mice between IEM Rio and PGL Astana. Same player, same surface, ~6 weeks apart. Natural experiment.
I parsed 21 demos (11 IEM Rio + 10 PGL Astana) and split his reaction into two phases per duel:
- T0→T1: enemy becomes visible → m0NESY starts moving crosshair toward enemy. Pure perception/reaction.
- T1→T2: starts moving crosshair → first registered hit. Mechanical aim + click.
A click-latency improvement should propagate to T1→T2 (faster click → faster registered hit), NOT T0→T1 (your eyes don't get faster from a better mouse).
Results (median, m0NESY only, peek scenarios including moving enemies up to 300 ):
| IEM Rio (before, N=73) | PGL Astana (after, N=38) | Δ |
|---|---|---|
| T0→T1 (reaction) | 203 ms | 203 ms |
| T1→T2 (mechanic) | 344 ms | 211 ms |
| T0→T2 (total) | 547 ms | 398 ms |
Reaction phase didn't move. Mechanic phase dropped 133ms.
Caveats:
- 133ms is way bigger than the 30ms click latency improvement alone. Most of the drop = 6 weeks of practice + roster context. Can't isolate the mouse.
- Astana mean T1→T2 is 397ms vs median 211ms — long outlier tail (likely re-aim scenarios). Median is the honest number.
- N=38 Astana is below the ≥30 stationary-only threshold I'd want for a confident point estimate.
- With stricter filter (only stationary enemies, ≤120 ) N drops to 15 and the signal flips. Threshold choice matters here.
Method BVH + AABB ray casting against enemy hitbox for T0 (the `m_bSpotted` flag is broken in CS2 GOTV — don't trust it). Viewangle delta for T1. `player_hurt` event for T2. 64-tick demos, ~15.6ms granularity.
Honest takeaway I can't prove SUPERSTRIKE caused the drop. What I can say is the drop is in the phase where hardware would propagate. T0→T1 staying at 203ms is the structurally interesting part — rules out "feels snappier → plays better" placebo bleeding into reaction.
Analyzed with my own tool which I was building for a year and trying to get users into.
DM if you want your own split.