In their first CSGO tournament after the highly anticipated acquisition of Marcelo ‘coldzera‘ David, FaZe Clan played far below initial expectations for a roster of that amount of talent. Is it time to hit the panic button already?
With their new additions of coldzera and Helvijs ‘broky’ Saukants, FaZe have set a high bar for themselves in the competitive CS:GO scene.
But unfortunately, they have stumbled and tripped over the bar in their first tournament.
With a 2-0 loss to the newly acquired Evil Geniuses roster (formerly NRG Esports), and then a 2-0 loss to OpTic Gaming, FaZe were the second team eliminated from the tournament and went home with an 0-4 record on maps.
Their loss to Evil Geniuses can’t be blamed on the new additions. Broky had a good series against EG, leading the FaZe team in KDA on both maps. His play on Nuke kept his team in the game, but even he couldn’t stop a red hot Evil Geniuses team from rolling over FaZe on Vertigo. FaZe’s star Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovacs didn’t fare well on the second map, as he had an abysmal game on Vertigo, only picking up three kills and dying eighteen times.
But a team experimenting with a new roster playing against a red hot top-three-in-the-world squad energized by some shiny new blue uniforms? Evil Geniuses were heavily expected to take that series.
However, the FaZe loss to OpTic, a team that didn’t even qualify for the EU minor, let alone the the Berlin major, is surprising. Especially given how one-sided it was. OpTic had a terrific team performance on Nuke, while FaZe were reliant solely on Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer having a good game. While a breakout game from the veteran is good news for FaZe going forward, it’s still a tough loss to swallow.
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FaZe suffered another tough loss on Dust II, again relying on olofmeister with some support from NiKo to generate all of their offense. For OpTic, it was a standout performance from René ‘cajunb’ Borg, who joined the team last month. That win has to feel good for cajunb, in his second stint with OpTic, who’s struggled to find solid footing with any new team since leaving Astralis.
Is it time to panic if you’re FaZe? Is all that money spent on coldzera a waste? It’s far too early to tell. It’s only been four maps and it’s only their first tournament. To have coldzera and NiKo both end up in the bottom three statistically of all the players at ESL One NY is a shock, but FaZe should only be concerned if these kind of results start to repeat.
ENCE are in a similar boat, having finished fifth at BLAST Moscow in their first event with Miikka “suNny” Kemppi. For both ENCE and FaZe, it’s best to avoid hitting the panic button too soon.
Follow all the CS:GO action in New York by checking out Dexerto’s ESL One NY hub.