es3tag links up with FaZe for BLAST Premier Spring Groups

FaZe Clan will attend the BLAST Premier Spring Groups with NIP benched player Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen as a stand-in, it has been announced.

es3tag will step in for Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard for the inaugural event of the season as the Norwegian player is unable to compete because of the birth of his child.

FaZe requested an emergency replacement as Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer, the team’s registered substitute, cannot play at the event because of personal reasons.

Kristian ‘k0nfig’ Wienecke was FaZe’s No.1 stand-in choice, but their request to use the former Astralis player was denied on the basis that he was already registered by Heroic as a substitute player. The decision came as a shock to FaZe’s team, who had been told over a week earlier that they could play with k0nfig if necessary.

es3tag was moved to NIP’s bench at the end of December in anticipation of the arrival of Ukrainian youngster Daniil ‘⁠headtr1ck’ Valitov, who would be signed from NAVI weeks later.

As Dexerto reported on January 4, es3tag is not part of the lineup submitted by NIP for this event. The Swedish team have registered academy duo Linus ‘nilo’ Bergman and Max ‘maxster’ Jansson as substitutes.

FaZe have also registered Edward ‘Eddie’ Han, the organization’s Director of Esports Operations, as their substitute coach for the event, replacing Robert ‘RobbaN’ Dahlström, who will miss the start of the tournament due to personal reasons.

Eddie stood behind FaZe’s team during their title-winning campaign at PGL Major Antwerp in 2022 as RobbaN was ineligible to work at the Valve-sponsored event because of his coach bug case.

FaZe are slated to take on Complexity on January 20 in their first match in Group B, which also includes Team Liquid and OG. Because of this substitute emergency, FaZe have incurred a seeding penalty, which means that they will be the lowest seed in all matchups during the Spring Groups tournament.