Twistzz: "I think pros need to be doing a way better job at leading by example"

Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken has reiterated his stance against widespread negativity around CS2, telling HLTV that unconstructive criticism "hurts the game the most."

FaZe stay alive at IEM Sydney after an action-packed first couple of days. Having lost a double-overtime opener against GamerLegion, they eliminated Vitality from the tournament on day one and went on to send home Natus Vincere on day two.

HLTV's Danish "Nohte" Allana got a hold of Twistzz for an interview at the end of the second day. The Canadian touched on FaZe's Mirage loss to a Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev-less NAVI and the team's upcoming rematch against GamerLegion before getting into his impressions of Counter-Strike 2 on LAN.

While he agreed that there are issues to be addressed, Twistzz stressed he still finds the game fun and said that the widespread negativity around the game might be doing more harm than good, calling on other pros to be more mindful of their criticism.

You can read or listen to the full interview below:

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You just beat NAVI and are still in the lower bracket, but getting closer to the playoffs. How does that feel, managing that win after a bit of a rough start to the tournament?

Honestly, I don't think the win is that impressive just because they have a stand-in situation. It would have been a better test if we played the actual NAVI lineup, it'd probably be more rewarding, but the most important thing is just that we survived the match. Now we have to fix our mistakes on Mirage.

Tell me about that series and those mistakes on Mirage, what was going on for you?

I think we got stagnant on CT side, we just wanted to rely on one thing that we were doing in practice and we weren't moving around a lot. It wasn't like Overpass, where we were confident and made readjustments and whatever. We have some work to do on this map, obviously the game is new and we've had roughly seven, eight practice days in the game. That probably goes for a lot of teams, at least us and G2 for sure because they played the Showdown.

You made a Tweet a while ago talking about how it was harder for you to split focus since CS2 came out, that it's hard to focus on CS:GO and motivate yourself. How are you feeling now that the game is fully out and you've been able to transition?

It's good. I still have other things in my life taking focus away, but I've been trying my hardest to play as much as possible. I was one of the people who played a lot with ropz when he was streaming, I was streaming it myself and getting used to the game. I feel like I put a decent amount of hours into it before this event, but I feel like I should still be doing more. That is what my team deserves and I'm gonna continue trying to put work in.

Both ENCE and G2 mentioned that it's hard to adapt with so many new things coming out during matches from teams, there are a lot of new plays, a lot of different things that teams are running. GamerLegion ended up beating you on Nuke, and NiKo mentioned Nuke was a bit harder of a map because of how much new stuff teams are doing. Do you regret that pick to start off the tournament, at all?

No, Nuke was the map we played good in practice, so we just wanted to believe in it. We would have won that game, we lost a 1on3 to be in OT, so that game should have been ours regardless of the scoreline.

There was one thing that they did that was really good that we'll most likely end up copying, but other than that I feel like we had the better Nuke.

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NiKo: "I don't feel the best individually right now [in CS2]"

Coming into this event it's been a rough run of events for FaZe as a whole, a lot of early exits compared to how you used to play. It's obviously a new game now, but what do you feel has been going wrong for FaZe as a whole outside of what you talked about in your Tweet?

What I talked about in my Tweet was just myself individually. For me, it's different because there's interesting stuff in the new game to find, new stuff in all my positions to find, so it's more exciting stuff to work on.

Prior to CS2 releasing, it's really hard to pin down things, what's going wrong in the team or whatever. This is not stuff that I'd share with the public, if people are making mistakes, and that's about it. Just overall team regression, I guess. We've regressed in a lot of ways, and now with the new game we have to work on that. It's kind of a fresh slate to work on.

You have another chance to make playoffs and are going into a rematch against GamerLegion tomorrow. What are your early thoughts on that?

Not really. I feel like we should have won the BO1 against them. Obviously, teams like this have an advantage because they've probably been playing CS2 for a while, but at the same time they just changed an IGL, so maybe it's not that much of an advantage. It'll probably just come down to who's better on the maps that are picked and who's just more adapted to the new game so far. That's what it'll come down to.

Date	Matches
IEM Sydney 2023
18/10/2023	GamerLegion 07:30 FaZe	Match

Lastly, speaking about the new game, how are you feeling now that we've played on LAN?

I still think it's good. I said in my Tweet that the game is for sure playable in its current state. I felt that way online in practice, I felt like it's playable. On LAN it feels a bit better, but I still feel like the game is vastly inconsistent in a lot of ways, how the models look when people are peeking you, how the game feels for you when you're peeking into someone. It's almost like on different textures you have more momentum when peeking, and it's very odd.

Say you're running down the stairs in boiler, it's probably really hard for someone to peek you or to hold an angle when you're reaching the bottom of the stairs if you're holding boiler. I killed iM trying to walk long and I swung out boiler, and there was this slight elevation change, and it just seemed like b1t had no chance to react, where in CS:GO it should be a 50:50 duel with this swing.

I still think peeker's advantage is a problem. I think that hinders the game in a lot of ways because, at the end of the day, crosshair placement should be rewarded in CS, and when you're holding angles it's kinda non-existent. Rather peek than be peeked.

Snax kind of described it to me as the whole game feeling slow until you're peeking someone, then it feels fast.

Yeah, that's really true. The other inconsistencies, sometimes your bullets make it look like you hit someone much more than it actually says. You're gonna be like, "yeah this guy is definitely tagged, like 73 in 3," and then you see you only hit him one time for like 27, blood everywhere. That could just be because subtick feels a lot more like 64tick.

For me, personally, I hate this lack of b-hopping, I feel like movement was such a special thing in GO, and that just blands down the game a bit. Some players should be rewarded for having better movement than others.

But at the moment I feel like it's fun on LAN especially. Zero ping, things are connecting a bit better, bullets are hitting and they hit good. Everyone always says the negative stuff about the game, and like I said in my Tweet I don't think harping on the issues does anything. No one's dick-riding the game, we just want to play. At the end of the day it's our job to play and do it at the highest level, and that's what we're gonna do, that's what pros should do.

To be honest, I've seen a lot of pros Tweeting and they just say the game is shit, they don't give any details why they think it's bad, or no productive feedback, and that's what hurts the game the most. The community and casuals look up to these players and then whatever notable voice says some shit about the game, that it's bad, they're just gonna leech onto that voice and try to share the same opinion. I think pros need to be doing a way better job at leading by example.