FaZe move past 9z to earn first EPL win

The reigning ESL Pro League champions will face either fnatic or Imperial for a chance to guarantee a playoff berth.

FaZe earned their first ESL Pro League Season 18 win after dispatching 9z in a two-map series in the opening round of Group C.

The European roster, who were playing for the first time since their 9-16th place run through Gamers8 close to a month ago, struck first following a labored win on Nuke (16-14) before wrapping things up and sending the South American side down to the lower bracket with a lopsided win on Inferno (16-3).

The Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led side, who also come into ESL Pro League as the reigning champions following their Season 17 win back in March, will look to build on their solid start when they play the winner of fnatic versus Imperial for a playoff spot on Thursday. 9z will play the loser of the aforementioned series in an attempt to avoid a trip to the last chance stage.

"Coming into this tournament we talked about having it more chill with less pressure. Obviously we want to win the tournament, but I think the last two years, every tournament we came into we had to win it," karrigan said in a post-match interview on stream. "It's a different mindset now because I feel like we're the gatekeepers to the top five. If you want to be in the top five, you have to pass us, [but] that's not fun to be, we want to be higher."

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 18
14/09/2023	FaZe 19:30 fnatic	Match
14/09/2023	9z 19:30 Imperial	Match

The series between the two teams kicked off on 9z's pick of Nuke, though it was FaZe who enjoyed the better start. The European squad adopted a highly mobile CT-side posture to constantly disrupt 9z's tactics and cruise to a 10-5 advantage by the break, with karrigan leading by example by adding 15 kills to his tally at the side swap.

FaZe's victory on Cedar Creek wasn't a foregone conclusion despite the lopsided first half, however, as Santino "⁠try⁠" Rigal and Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia joined forces with 51 kills between them to keep their team in it. Instead it took individual brilliance from Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool for FaZe to eke out victory in the nick of time, with the Estonian dropping 28 frags of his own to earn his side a labored 16-14 win and send the series to Inferno.

There, FaZe put on a show as they completely decimated 9z on the offense. The ESL Pro League Season 17 champions tore the South Americans apart round after round, consistently cracking open the two bombsites with clinical executes to sit on a commanding 14-1 lead at halftime. 9z did offer some token resistance with a brief two-round spree, but the overwhelming deficit ultimately proved too much to handle, with FaZe closing things out a short time later, 16-3.