IEM New York EU: FaZe Are Victorious!

FaZe Clan are the winners of the European portion of Intel Extreme Masters New York. Following a near-perfect Group Stage run, in the Grand Finals they had to face the one team they couldn’t beat before. But after a narrow first map, OG were broken and conceded the match on a 0-3 scoreline.

On Mirage, the two teams pulled close. Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and his team got a small 8-7 lead and continued on the T side. There, FaZe and OG traded rounds until FaZe sat on top of a 14-12 score. But OG managed to find three more rounds and were now close to map victory themselves. Unfortunately for them, they failed in the last round and were dragged into overtime.

After two overtimes total, FaZe came out on top of a 22-20 scoreline. Some of the players, like Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt and Marcelo “coldzera” David, only contributed in small portions. But Nikola “NiKo” Kovač and Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye started the Grand Finals off with a bang.

OG’s pick, Inferno, was up next. There, the team had the opportunity to restart their game and tie the match score. Instead, FaZe took over control of the map and secured 12 rounds in the first half. OG managed to win the pistol and the follow-up round, but that was all they could muster. Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski had one of his worst performances ever and only recorded a 0.43 rating for his efforts. On the other side, coldzera impressed on a 1.77 rating, but generally all FaZe players put up a brilliant show.

On Dust2, OG got their act together and following an 8-7 half in their favor, it looked as though they might have found a window back into the match. But on their T side, everything broke down. The calls weren’t right, the shots didn’t land. They had only secured three more round points when NiKo clutched his team to a 16-11 map and match victory.

HOW DID FAZE WIN THE GRAND FINALS?

Kjaerbye and his mates definitely got a huge boost from winning Mirage this closely. On the first map, both teams had already spent a lot of their energy. This became particularly apparent on Dust2, where OG were individually and strategically lost for most of the time. Aleksib was unable to think more than one step ahead and his team often just directly answered to what their opponents were doing, instead of proactively taking action. For instance, if they managed to get the bomb down, they often weren’t set up at all for the post-plant situation.

In the last round, they got the plant on A Site, but Aleksib and company had no control over Long, Short, or CT. So they were vulnerable to all sides. FaZe picked them apart player by player, until valde lost the duel to NiKo. The Bosnian player defused the bomb with mere milliseconds left. But even if he hadn’t succeeded, FaZe would have pulled through eventually. OG lacked the star performance and teamwork to win.

FAZE ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK

Obviously, it’s much too early to call the ‘Kjaerbye project’ a success. After all, FaZe put up a horrible show throughout their first two events with the roster. Now that the team can apparently keep up with the top brass, their European competitors will treat them differently as well. Their biggest advantage during IEM was that nobody had expected them to get this far.

The coming events will show whether FaZe have actually built a solid and lasting foundation for themselves. Their performance during IEM at least proves that the roster can be successful in principle. With his 1.12 rating, Kjaerbye ranked amongst the Top 10 of players at the tournament, which lends some credibility to his claim that there still lies a star player somewhere inside of him. FaZe will take part in DreamHack Open Fall, during which they will fight for Major qualification points and will have to compete against teams like Natus Vincere and mousesports. The players cannot rest on their IEM trophy, as the next big challenge for FaZe Clan will commence in a short few days.