ropz on Intel Grand Slam: "This is where we need to do it and it's not going to get better than this"

The EPL grand final will give FaZe a shot at revenge over Cloud9 and the possibility to claim the coveted Intel Grand Slam title.

FaZe bulldozed their way through Natus Vincere after an opening map loss on Ancient to a 2-1 victory at the ESL Pro League Season 17 semi-finals. The top team of 2022 came out ahead of the top team of 2021, and will now face Cloud9 in the tournament's grand final.

On the line is not just the hope of a return to form and winning ways for the star-studded squad, but also revenge on the Russians for three defeats at IEM Rio, ESL Pro League Season 16 and IEM Dallas, as well as a shot at the Intel Grand Slam title.

Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool took some time to chat with HLTV after the semi-final series to run through some of the match's highlights, including a four-kill full eco win that included a 1vs2 clutch by the Estonian star. Regarding the coming final, it's going to be a style clash. "We really rely on chaos sometimes," ropz said, "just creating really weird scenarios often, our team really excels in the chaos, and for Cloud9 it's quite the opposite."

To start with your opening on Ancient, it was obviously a pretty rough start for you, down 0-11. What was going wrong?

The match started out a bit surprising, we didn't expect them to pick Ancient. We knew this map is going to be in the pool, but rather as the third map, so we were a bit surprised by the pick, and well it showed. They were prepared very well, and they obviously had an idea of what they were doing. The fact that we lost the first few rounds, we closed in on ourselves, and we couldn't really find an answer.

It was rather like we don't want to find an answer as well, like we were scared to make the necessary plays and find the necessary info, make the right rotations. It was really tough as well because they found the majority of the entries, so we were always playing from behind. The two rounds we won, we did make a good play, but I think NAVI just had the upper hand on this Ancient.

After that you reset and had a much better start going into Nuke. NAVI got a couple on the board near the start but it was you for most of that first half. What was the game plan or overall approach on your T side there?

On T side, we have a very wide playbook. Going into this match we knew we were going to pick either Inferno or Nuke, whichever is available. Since they banned Inferno we had to go with Nuke, and we had prepared quite some anti-strats for this match.

We played some of the rounds which we already had practiced, but then karrigan will create one, two, or maybe even three variations of a few rounds which play into NAVI way better, since we know how to hit some specific timings and rotations and know what can make them rotate and give us a good chance to open up the round. We just played some of the basic stuff we have — not necessarily basic, but the normal strats we have, and created a few variations for this specific matchup.

One of the biggest moments was your USP quad kill. It seemed almost like NAVI was building back into the map, they won two in a row and put most of you on pistols, but then you got this absurd 4k from rafters. Can you just walk me through what the comms were like during that round and what you were feeling?

Yeah, certainly. After the Nuke round with the USP I was mindblown myself. We talked about it a bit after, the funny thing was is that broky had the single AWP which was saved, and the rest of the guys we just had USPs. He was the one who died first, and that made this round even more crazy that we managed to win it right there.

We had a call, some of the teams who play Nuke do this as well, they stack on top of the rafters on Nuke like we did now, they boost on both sides. But I was left alone on the other side and they just ended up executing A with a main split, I believe, and they had no idea where we were shooting from.

When I shot the first two guys they weren't looking at me, then the third guy appears, he's looking for me, but he had no idea where I was and I just shoot him as well. So that was a crazy POV from me, I was shooting three people with USP, 12 bullets, I reload and they still don't know where I was. Winning the last two was the toughest part, it comes down to also just...

I'm not sure who the last player was, but I was sure in that moment that I was dead because I feel like when you're in that position against an AK, he was next to vents, I cannot exit the position so I just had to strafe and hope for the best and hope he misses. That's what happened, and I managed to end the round there.

You're through to the grand final now. There's been this whole ongoing conversation about the Intel Grand Slam and you being on track to win it, you've missed three chances to fight for it at past events. How does it feel going into this match with it now really a possibility, and with the pressure mounting more and more with just three chances left to win it?

The Grand Slam story is always like this [laughs]. It's funny, every event we go to it's like, okay is it this time, or is it going to be this time. We get this question every time, obviously rightfully so, we are in this position to close it out. I think us reaching this point where we actually have a real moment to finish it, it's the most important part. Whatever happens in the final, win or lose, I think we can at least live with ourselves that we gave ourselves the chance to actually do it.

The tournaments before, you can't really count them as good as this one, like we haven't really been in the position to grab it with our hands, so I'm really happy that we have reached this point. I actually felt quite weird after the match now, I'm a bit shaky, just feeling butterflies in my stomach. It's been a long time since I've felt like that, maybe just after the Major win, or even in the final in the Major.

I think this is some of the resurgence of last year that we have here, and I think when we're in this form we can definitely win, but Cloud9 is a tough opponent and we have a lot of respect for each other. They've beat us in a few playoff matches which have been deciding, and we have some good storylines there.

I was going to ask about that matchup, especially with them having beaten you in your last three meetings in Rio, Dallas, and the last Pro League season. How much motivation do you have to take revenge over them and secure the Grand Slam on top of that?

I think each of us realizes, right in this moment, that this is it. Obviously we have a few more chances after this tournament if it goes wrong, but I think all of us know that this is where we need to do it and it's not going to get better than this, basically. Talking about Cloud9, I think this team is the most disciplined team I have ever seen play. They have very good fundamentals, they do the basics the best I would say, and that's why they're such a tough opponent for us.

We really rely on chaos sometimes, just creating really weird scenarios often, our team really excels in the chaos, and for Cloud9 it's quite the opposite. They grind down the rounds and they play very, very strict, sometimes they can play different but the playstyle they have... it's not necessarily a counter for us, but it's sometimes hard for us to play against.