FaZe came into 2024 as the best team in the world and although the run of finals continued for a while, they now find themselves slipping down the rankings and without a grand final appearance since IEM Chengdu.
At BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2024, we spoke to their coach NEO about the slip, ropz's form, and how age can change a player's outlook on their Counter-Strike career.
Yeah, we've just started the season and there are a lot of tournaments ahead, so it's a long process. We're having a slow start, but hopefully, we'll bounce back and speed up.
I think the most important thing is to not forget that we are capable of being the number one team in the world, we were there a couple of months ago and it's not like much has changed.
It's still the same team, we still have amazing players on the lineup, but we've just lost a little bit of confidence with some losses we've had.
Last season, we played in a lot of finals and had a lot of good runs, but it was exhausting, so we slowed down towards the end of the season.
We just need to not let it get into our heads. Most of the games we lose are close and it's small things that decide the result, so we're not far from the top right now. We just need to not let it get into our heads.
We always struggle against Vitality, then there's NAVI who have also beaten us more times than we have beaten them. There is the new G2 who seems strong right now, too.
MOUZ is always a strong contender for every tournament they play, it's close between all of these teams.
I think killer instinct comes with more practice and more confidence, which we have lacked recently.
It's just a matter of adjustments needing to be made to our gameplans. Obviously, ropz is one of the most amazing players I've ever experienced watching, he is capable of doing incredible things, but moments like this happen in every player's career. You can't always be on top, and it comes down to how you bounce back.
He has it within him to do that, it's just a matter of adjusting to the situation. There has to be a lot of work done, and each player is a part of the team and not having him fully confident isn't good for the team. That could happen to every player, though.
It comes down to strat book we have, I believe he needs to be confident with the style he's playing. It's never easy to be a lurker, a lot of things depend on the team and like we've seen in the past, if the team isn't doing that great, then the lurker is not in the best position.
Maybe we need to connect a little bit more, we're still trying to figure it out. He's had some very nice games recently, it's just inconsistent. We need to have faith and put more work into that.
I'm not so sure about that, if I'm not mistaken, ropz is playing the same positions. Each player brings a lot to the table and once you change one player, it's already a huge change because every player brings something different and that creates gaps in different departments, so it has to happen naturally that each player fills the gaps that are created,
There are some adaptations to be made after a lineup change, but I don't really think it's because of that. Of course, it might be something to do with it, but I feel like there's more to it than just that.
The biggest goal right now is Cologne. That's the number one goal in the short term. After that, there are a few more tournaments but, of course, the Major will be the biggest goal as it is for every player in CS. We'll aim for that.
When I think about it, the beauty of CS is that it's a team game and you can have players with different personalities and ages on the lineup.
Roles are much more set now than they used to be, there weren't so many back in the day, but for example, with karrigan as our IGL, experience like he has can help a player stay longer, it's more difficult to replace. But with star players like f0rest was, it's not as difficult because there's so much talent, so many young stars, that these type of players can be found.
I think that's the big difference, but when we talk about age in CS the biggest problem isn't aim or reflexes, it's the focus you can have on the game. When people are young, it's easier to practice for ten hours a day with full focus, but when you get older it's harder to be that stable.
Like I said, in CS you can have different players and you should have the mix of both experience and young blood.
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