rain: "CS2 gave me a fresh perspective of the game"

The Norwegian rifler says that the game favors the way he plays and he abused reaction times to peeks to help power FaZe's title campaign.

The first grand final of Counter-Strike 2 delivered in spades down under, with FaZe crowned champions after a blistering three-map series that ended in double overtime on Ancient.

The trophy is FaZe's first since winning ESL Pro League Season 17 and the Intel Grand Slam Season 4 in March, after which they experienced a prolonged down period which resulted in early eliminations and not a single grand final appearance.

The Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen-led side showcased a spectacular return to form at the Australian event, however, recovering from an opening loss to GamerLegion by winning their next six series, including victories over four of the top five teams in the world.

In classic FaZe fashion, the sheer firepower and individual moments at different times from their players made it hard to pin down an MVP, but in the end, Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard managed to narrowly edge ahead in the race.

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HLTV spoke to the Norwegian rifler to hand him his medal and discuss his performance and FaZe's path to the trophy, with the 29-year-old playfully joking about an "old man getting an MVP" before the interview went live.

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Wow, what a grand final. Just give me your thoughts after that game.

I'm just happy we won on Ancient you know, not another repeat of Dallas versus ENCE. It feels good, the game feels good, and the team feels good. I kinda feel like we're back a little bit.

Yeah, you are, it was your first grand final since your EPL S17 win, and your first trophy now as well. Can you speak about the journey getting back here and winning a title after all that time?

It feels amazing, of course. We're not very used to waiting this long for a trophy with this team, it's a great feeling and we worked very hard for it. It was also a very weird year overall because of the whole, 'When is CS2 coming out?', so motivation is definitely back on top and we're grinding a lot.

Did that affect you too, in terms of motivation?

Yeah, I think so. I kinda was set on it coming out in the summer, like ready to grind in the player break a little bit, and then it was just pushed and pushed. It's hard for me to find motivation to find new things in CS:GO when everything was so overused already, and CS2 gave me a fresh perspective of the game.

It looks like it did for sure, this was your highest-rated event since PGL Major Antwerp where you actually won the MVP [rain laughs]. What is going through your head when you're hearing that?

It feels good of course. It's been a rough patch since then for me individually, and I think this game, especially now, it favors the way that I play. The peeks you can do, people don't really have time to react at the moment, and I think I kind of abused it a little this tournament. But, it's the game we play, and you gotta play with what you have.

Talking about the series briefly, there was a lot to it, any highlight moments for you in terms of what you can remember right now?

There were highlights from everyone, Everyone did a lot of great shots, a lot of great clutches. ropz especially has stepped up a lot this tournament, he kept getting entries here and there, and it's the ropz we know right? Hopefully we keep this up for the future.

There was one moment where it looked like Complexity could have 2-0'd the series on Nuke. It was 9-9, you won an eco, and then a round later they won an A rush. What was going through the team's comms at that point?

It was just unfortunate because we did a set call from the start on CT side, and they did exactly what we were not ready for. It's rough to lose that way and it brings you down a little bit, but I'm just happy that we managed to grind it out in the end and not lose because of a silly mistake.

A lot of the time when you were taking timeouts, it seemed like NEO wasn't talking much. What's the situation with that?

No, he's talking a lot. Maybe you guys didn't see it, maybe he's not moving his mouth too much. He's very calm, he's very similar to RobbaN in that sense that he's very calm, and he brings small things that can help change a round. Some of the timeouts are more to just relax us, calm us down, and sometimes it gets a bit chaotic.

Especially now in the grand final, in freezetime you will talk about five different things at the same time, and then we go out of freezetime and we're like, 'what are we doing,' you know? So he just brings us down and puts us back on Earth.

On Ancient, you were up 10-3 [rain smiles], it took a long time to close it out. What was going on?

There's a few mistakes, I think especially at 12-10, I remember, we had three guys in A main. I think all three of us pulled out a smoke grenade and Grim swings with a Five-SeveN, so there's a few mistakes, but this is what happens when you play in a grand final, the last map, it's a lot of nerves for everyone and that's when mistakes happen.

Your path to the title here, you beat the No. 1, 2, 4, 5, and 11 and 14th teams. How do you think that sets you up going forward, going into more CS2 events, going into Shanghai?

Confidence-wise, it sets us up pretty good, even though NAVI without s1mple is not NAVI, you know, and MOUZ without Jimphhat as well. There's some players missing and it doesn't feel as good as if they were the full lineup, but of course it's a good confidence boost going into the next tournament.