karrigan: "allu's 1v2 was key"

After three rounds of the Swiss format, FaZe are at a 2-1 record with a narrow win over Liquid on Nuke, which went to two overtimes.

We got a hold of Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen after their match against the North American team and asked him about some of the key rounds of the encounter on Nuke:

Another close match for FaZe, this time against Liquid, there were a lot of close rounds, which do you think were key in your win?

One of them was allu's 1v2 with the AWP inside the hut, that was the key round where I felt like this was where we can wreck their momentum, and I think they eco'd after that, but then we lost that round. That was a pretty important round to win.

Towards the end of regulation, right after you lost that anti-eco, you went for a semi-forcebuy and ended up having to forcebuy again afterwards due to losing the first one. Talk me through that decision, what was going through your mind at the time?

I really wanted to make a semi-buy, because I wanted to rush upper and I had a feeling they played very defensively. We even got a 3-on-3 trade and then it just collapsed, I just wanted to see how they were playing inside and then maybe they'd be afraid of us using it in the next round.

I think we had enough money to do what I wanted in the next round, which was an explosive ramp, so I didn't need that many nades to fake outside, or whatever I decided to do. So basically, we had one tec-9 and four AK's with limited grenades, got down to the bombsite and made the X-on-X how we needed to do.

The first overtime was a very back-and-forth battle, what kind of mindset did you have throughout it and how did you adapt?

We really believe in our T side, so first of all, we had a bad start as CT and we knew that once we came into overtime we had a fresh start and could fix our CT side and not going cold into the match. I think what was the hardest was our standard, they were pretty good at adapting, or not adapting, they knew beforehand how we like to take yard control.

So in the overtime, we had to really think about how to fake this kind of thing, and then go ramp where nitr0 played. So the last round when we were as T we faked that and I killed one in the back, and the whole lower bombsite was open since they had two yard and were expecting us to go around cat or behind CT. So we kinda faked that in the end, because I knew how they were playing on yard.

You have two chances to make it to playoffs now, with the Swiss format you can't know who you'll face, is there anyone you'd like to face, or someone you'd like to avoid?

I think Astralis is the hardest team in the 2-1 pool right now, but everybody in that group are good teams. We can definitely not face SK, so that limits it down to four teams, Astralis, G2, Gambit and fnatic, so one of those four teams...

G2 and fnatic have kind of the same playstyle, so I think we have a good match-up against anyone we want to play, so Astralis is the hardest opponent in that group. You never know when you have Gambit, we had a lot of practice against them, so that will play a factor.

Lastly, I'd like to talk about the Swiss format, it seems FaZe likes it, what are your thoughts on it? What are its biggest advantages?

The last top eight, the seedings would have been completely wrong in the normal groups, there could've been a group with Liquid, FlipSid3, someone who qualified like GODSENT and then the fourth team who also qualified, so the Swiss system takes out some of those random factors.

That we have gotten FlipSid3 and Liquid, of course we're lucky in the draw, but we can't do anything about it, it's random, and you have to win three games, so there must have been an upset somewhere. In the end, in the Swiss system that makes the best teams come out on top, there's of course a random element, but I think that is better than doing groups. Especially with the scene right now, where 10 out of the last 11 tournaments had different winners, so how do you seed the number one in the world? I think that is the best way to do it, hopefully the top eight who go to playoffs are also the top contenders.

Make sure to check out the other interviews we've conducted at the ELEAGUE Major:

Day three

Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács: "We came with only one goal"

Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen: "We had a great bootcamp"

Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer: "Didn't expect Dust2"

Day two

Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski: "I hope Gambit will be nervous"

Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz: "It was important for us to start well"

Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman: "[YOLO teams] will go far"

Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin: "It doesn't feel like we won"

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo: "Gonna fight as hard as we can"

Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong: "Confident about our map pool"

Day one

Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey: "Everyone's happy with their roles"

Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten: "I'm happy it went to Train"

Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire: "It was hard after jdm's 1v5"

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev: "Hope to show beautiful CS"

Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski: "It's always close vs. OpTic"

Ricardo "⁠fox⁠" Pacheco: "We played 12-14 hours a day"

Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon: "FaZe can do pretty well here"

Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov: "We prepared for everyone"