karrigan: "We have to break all of the records and make sure CS:GO goes out with a bang"

The Danish IGL wants the community to rally for the BLAST.tv Paris Major.

On the eve of the last CS:GO Major, we spoke to the in-game leader of FaZe, Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen, who urged the viewers to make the next two weeks a memorable farewell to the game. "I think it really deserves it, it has changed my life and many other players' lives."

The fact that the team almost missed out on qualifying for the event and is now the lowest-seeded team is something the 33-year-old is using as fuel in hopes of battling through the tough field in Paris.

"Right now we have the lowest seed in the tournament so we have to show everyone else that we deserve to be a higher seed," karrigan said in the media day interview, one day before facing the highest seed of the stage, Monte. "In another universe we would have never been here at the Paris Major."

He also spoke about the post-ESL Pro League burnout, disastrous result in Rio, and what FaZe did to come into the Major with renewed energy.

Let's start with preparation, what did you guys do to get ready for this last event, especially considering with how you got here?

We planned ahead, two months ago, how the schedule would have to look. But yeah, things went South at the RMR and that certainly took a lot of time, prepping for the last chance qualifier. A lot of practice between the RMR and the last chance qualifier.

We managed to travel to Rio, we couldn't play our best CS there, so we had a team talk after and decided to take like four or five days off to really take time away from the PC. I really felt like the only way we would be able to go deep in the Major was to have enough energy to play good CS so we decided to only play two days online and then do five days of intensive bootcamp.

That's the thing about Majors, you play so many games, so many high-intensity games, that if you want to go deep and win the tournament you need to go deep and have that extra mental space. I think what we created has been really good, the practice has been really good at the bootcamp.

Having the first bootcamp this deep into the season... It was hard to start the season with rain absent before Katowice, so I think we've done what we could to come back into having a good stable mindset and playing well as a team.

At the RMR particularly, having to make it through the last chance qualifier, was that a bit of a wake-up call? I can understand Rio was right after, you were tired from the RMR and maybe even already thinking ahead at the Major. But at the RMR itself, was it a bit of wake-up call?

It was very strange. We come from winning the Intel Grand Slam, one of the biggest things you can win in CS:GO. Only four teams have won it. Coming from playing that high pressure game against Cloud9 in the final then going to the RMR, I don't think we were able to reset as a team and realizing that this is a really important part of the season.

Sometimes you take things for granted and what I've learned is, yeah, you're still a human being, you take things for granted, and when we went up 2-0 in the RMR we let the pedal off the gas for a bit. We got wrecked by NAVI, by BNE, and they played way better than us, we had 0 chance in those two games.

The MOUZ game was a big wake-up call. We woke up for that game but they managed to win the half buy on the third map going into overtime. So yes, the RMR itself was a huge wake-up call for us because even if we play at 95% at this point it's not enough. You have to play at 100% and if the enemies want it more than you, you're not always going to win the game.

What we showed in the last chance qualifier was passion, heart, and shouting from round one in a group stage match, which normally doesn't happen with this team — we're more fired up when we get on the stage. So what I think we're going to bring in this early stage of the Major, as well, is to be fired up as well and give all we have in every single game.

You were talking about how you needed to take a few days off to have high energy. Tell me a bit about energy conservation. If you look at traditional sports like football, you have long seasons with a lot of games, so there's player rotation. How do you deal with fatigue in Counter-Strike?

You often see it in the middle of the season, how everyone is transforming in practice. Practice is always the first step when you realize if the team is fatigued or some players are a little off. Is it the individual form? Is it just stuff going on at home? Is it the travel days that are killing you when you get home?

So I think as a team you just have to be open about it and say, 'Guys, I have a rough time right now, is there something the team can do to compensate for that?' Sometimes it is fatigue and you have to realize that if you're tired and you're pushing yourself to play, it's just going to get worse and there's always going to be something after a tournament.

For me, for the long career I've had, it's important for me to say 'This day is off, I don't touch CS, I don't do anything.' As an IGL, especially, I need to be on point all of the time with energy and reading the game, and what I've learned over time is to understand my body, understanding myself. As a team it's always hard to have everyone on at the same time, the same as individual peak form, you're not always going to have all players hitting it at the same time.

So yeah, we just made a decision. We could see that the whole team was, after Rio... Not devastated about the result, but just tired. I think it was important for everyone to take a step back instead of a player just playing a little less, we all needed to take a step away from the PC. We talked about that and just made sure that when we now practice the next seven or eight days we need full energy and we expect everyone to be as high-energy as possible.

Can we then expect a refreshed FaZe here at the Major. Are you feeling ready and confident for it?

I expect us to show up swinging, to show energy, heart and passion. You never know what's going to happen. Right now we have the lowest seed in the tournament so we have to show everyone else that we deserve to be a higher seed. That goes from round one of the game tomorrow.

I expect us to play well, I always expect us to play well, but I think that the first day is always important at the Major. We've learned from some of the mistakes we've done that even if we're 2-0 or 0-2, it doesn't really grant you access to the next stage so whatever happens we need to stay focused and believe in what we've done and the map pool. Like I said, if you want to win the Major you have to come out swinging from the beginning and make sure you keep the energy high.

What do you expect from that opening round?

A good game. Monte is a really refreshing team, they're an underrated team, they've gone under the radar besides when they played at the RMR, so I expect a great game. It's a best-of-one, that's always exciting — I love to watch them, as well, but less so to play them. In theory I think they're an underdog team and they can surprise, even going very deep here at the Major.

So yeah, we have respect for how Monte are playing, but the way we see the game, what we've done, when we're hitting peak performance we're hard to play against, so hopefully we'll come out swinging from round one.

This is a Major, the pinnacle of Counter-Strike. A team like Monte has never experienced this before, as a whole. They have a lot of player that just don't have that experience. Do you think you have a little bit of an advantage in that sense?

Yeah, what we're going to do this event to reverse that pressure before the game starts is basically say, 'In another universe we would have never been here at the Paris Major.' There's a big chance there wouldn't be a last chance qualifier, we wouldn't be here, so we're just trying to not put pressure on ourselves. I think that's going to be the key, to tell the team and acknowledge that we took the last spot at this Major. When it comes down to pressure it all comes down to expectations on the team, on a player.

Some players really want to win a CS:GO Major and they're going to feel the pressure, but not many players can handle that. It's all about how the game goes, that's the thing about pressure, if they go up 8-0 against us and suddenly it gets tight, that's when you start to feel pressure. If you're winning 16-5, then the pressure never came to you. I think about that and how human beings are and how players are going to handle pressure.

When people say they don't have pressure, in my mind they already have it because why would you even pinpoint it. I'm just looking forward to playing the tournament and enjoy this last CS:GO Major because we don't know how CS2 is going to evolve next year.

Yeah, that's kind of how I wanted to wrap things up. You've had a very storied career and it's the last CS:GO Major, a big moment in the game's history, so what does it mean for yourself and your teammates going into this last CS:GO Major?

It'd be fun to win another Major, obviously, then you can look at my career and say I hit peak performance when I was 32 to 33, right? [laughs] That would be awesome. I think it means a lot for everyone, it's a game with three generations of players right now. The completely new ones to the ones that have been here since the very first Major.

Over all I think it's a fantastic time to look into a new game, but also a fantastic time to celebrate what CS:GO has done to many lives involved. We have to put in the viewership, break all of the records, and make sure CS:GO goes out with a bang. I think it really deserves it, it has changed my life and many other players' lives, and I just love what I'm doing. Hopefully everyone will show up as players, that we'll have the best possible final, some awesome matches, overtimes, drama, I want everything in this Major to make sure that we celebrate it has done for the industry in the last 10 years.