Despite being the most dominant team in the opening months of CS2, a year later, FaZe are without an event win since IEM Chengdu in April.
A term currently classified as being in a rut by many analysts, they will be motivated by the fact ropz is seemingly back. The Estonian just recorded his best LAN rating (1.26) since the release of the new game.
Ahead of BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024, we spoke to ropz about FaZe's form at ESL Pro League as well as the development of CS2.
You’ve just come off your time at Pro League, how are you feeling about your run there?
Feeling disappointed, we had a bootcamp between groups and playoffs. It was very productive and we focused on playing more and getting hours in.
We definitely improved, but Complexity played better than us in the first playoff game. There were some unfortunate circumstances as well, the majority of the team caught the flu. It’s not an excuse, but just to put it more in perspective what we had to deal with.
The run featured a surprising loss to Sangal in your opening game - what do you think happened there?
At the time it didn’t feel anything special, we’ve lost many opening games. They came in hot and it could be seen from Anubis where we got demolished. They were winning more duels and we didn’t really get a foot in the game. We had a clean run in the lower bracket afterwards with revenge.
Now that CS2 has been out for a full year, how are you feeling about the game?
I've criticised sub-tick from day 1, since March of 2023 when CS2 and the beta was announced. I think it’s fair to say that aspect is a disappointment, CS:GO netcode definitely felt better.
They could still move to 128-tick based servers which could improve the situation. FPS is a big issue, going from tournament to tournament it is sometimes rough when you don’t have the best of the best PC’s.
The game is alright if you compare the transitions from back in the days like when CS:GO was released. But I feel like Valve could do a lot better than this.
There’s always talk about the time the game will need to get to the levels of GO, how long do you think it should take?
Not sure but I’d guess the game will be great by 2030.
Do you worry that the time might be too long and the game will be damaged in the long run in terms of playerbase/general interest?
Yes, from my side I’ve stopped caring about it, because it’s demotivating to think about. I think the data is also already showing a decline. The game has much more potential and I hope Valve will realise this sooner than later.
Your next event is Fall Final, how are you feeling about it?
We went quite hard at Pro League and did a lot of work there outside of the official matches. We are taking a couple days off which we got due to losing, to recover from illness and then hopefully show a better FaZe.
Your opening match is a tough one against G2, how do you feel about them as an opponent?
G2 are a team with a lot of firepower, everyone from them is shooting hard. I agree it’s a tough one, especially as an opener. If we show up from the first moment, we can definitely win, I don’t think there’s any doubt.
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