Exclusive: Twistzz on why he left FaZe, second thoughts, declining Vitality (Part 1)

Twistzz decided to leave FaZe before their resurgence in CS2 and was caught in an "emotional rollercoaster" during his final weeks with the team.

Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken officially announced his departure from FaZe last week, and on Thursday Liquid confirmed the Canadian's return to his former organization.

This finally brought an end to a saga that began in September, when the two-time Intel Grand Slam winner began to contemplate whether his future rests elsewhere for the first time since he joined the FaZe organization in early 2021.

In a tell-all interview with HLTV conducted during the BLAST Premier Fall Final two weeks ago, Twistzz explained how the organization dropping the ball sparked the decision and talked about the difficult call to leave the team with whom he had spent nearly three years.

He went at length into how the decision, and many fans calling for him to stay while FaZe went on their run of three consecutive title wins after the switch to Counter-Strike 2, left him on an "emotional rollercoaster" at the time.

The 24-year-old Canadian also revealed that he had Vitality knocking on his door along with the options to stay in FaZe or return to Liquid, and discussed why he did not accept the offer to replace Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif.

You can read the full interview below:

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Editor's note: This interview was conducted on November 24, before Twistzz officially left FaZe and before they lost their winning streak in the BLAST Premier Fall Final title decider.

It is therefore his perspective from while he was still playing alongside his now former FaZe teammates and before he began his new journey. The second part, about joining Liquid and his new team, was conducted on Friday and will be released on Sunday.

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Let's talk about the departure from FaZe, first of all. This a team that you've spent almost three years with and had a lot of success, even keep having success now, so tell me about the decision to move away from all that.

It's been a bit weird. I feel like it got sparked because of a lack of willingness by FaZe to start negotiations. Now I know that it's just how they operate and they were deeply sorry about it, but my contract was basically already ended by the time negotiations came around. Sometime in September my contract term technically did end.

Coming from Liquid to FaZe, negotiations usually start six, even seven months in advance, and the negotiation with FaZe was basically starting weeks before my contract was ending. There was a lack of communication for about a month, and within that month, like two weeks in, I told FaZe, 'Man, I have team offers coming in, I need to know what's happening. Am I still here or what?' By the time there was an answer, I was already in pretty deep talks with Vitality and Liquid.

It's been tough. My decision was made before Sydney, obviously because my contract negotiations were happening before September, so it was a while before any events were played. My team knew about everything before Sydney started, and that's why it's been very weird to have so much success. One could say that this was like the actual Last Dance CS edition just because we're going out with a bang. The most important thing for me is that people on the team did not feel bad during the events due to the team situation. I'm sure they are sad about it, but they understand what we've accomplished together is nothing short of greatness. We've completed Counter-Strike together on pretty much every level, so I'm gonna hold this specific team close for a long time, and I'm not planning on losing any of the friendships that I've made here.

But man, it's been difficult sometimes. Sometimes I'd have doubts, I would want to check in, like, 'Can I still cancel this, how committed am I?' But for a long time there was no way out. It would have to have been canceled pretty early on, probably before any tournaments were won, and obviously the team prior to CS2 wasn't doing so hot. Sometimes it does feel like a lineup has an expiry to how much better it can really get. Maybe it's my bad for not believing what could be around the corner with the new game, but I was looking for a team with a younger leader, a younger core, so that there's more longevity to it. karrigan is owning right now, but let's not forget he is 33, and life just happens. You want to have a family or whatever, and I'm sure that's something that he's gonna wanna start soon. Father Time is not easy to beat for esports players, so I was looking for something younger and maybe something that has longevity to it.

It's been an emotional rollercoaster, for sure, many conversations, and my fianceé has been the main pillar of that. I would be talking to her every day, she's always been fairly reasonable in terms of not being biased, so it's been great being able to talk with her about this stuff. Also the FaZe situation, I understand how they work now, I have nothing against the org. It wasn't always the best relationship, but at the end I understand how they work, and they said they were gonna improve everything, so as long as the people that come after me and the people that are still here get a better experience than I did, that's all that matters for me.

From the way I understood it, you were making the final call in the middle of Sydney, right?

I had to give my 100% commitment before Sydney ended. I remember there was a night, I think the night before the semi-final game, I'm being told that I have to make a decision before 5 AM, and I'm sitting there outside of the hotel, looking at my phone, it's 4 AM, and I'm just having a super-deep conversation with myself, like, 'Man, what the fuck am I doing? I need to really think hard about this right now.' Ultimately I chose Liquid then and there. It was tough, not gonna lie, I told them I was pretty committed before that event, but I was mentally not decided for a long time. It was just going off gut feeling on what the next move is in my career.

Another weird thing during Sydney was the GameSquare acquisition news, and that really played a factor in what was happening in my head at the time, that it was tough. Even now I was thinking like, it could have been fun to see what happens and if there has to be a new org that needs to be found, going on that journey.

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But, at the same time, I won't speak for everyone, but some contracts on my team were very fresh, long contracts that were committed again, and I was told that if I did re-sign the price of the team would spike exponentially. The number I heard, man, that's a steep number for an org to invest into the entire team. You saw when Gambit sold their roster for under a million... Bro, I think we would be like 10 times that. It's just hard to imagine that an org would pay that. Sure, you are technically buying the best team in CS at the moment, but at the same time they're probably also gonna look at, 'What is the longevity of what we're purchasing here?'

You were talking about the doubts before, I can imagine it has to be pretty tough seeing the success that you have now and heading into a completely new project.

The saddest part for me is that I always try to remain loyal to where I am, and if it's going good I don't wanna leave, and that's why it's weird. I left before it started going good! It's kinda hard to mentally deal with that aspect. I've had countless conversations with my fianceé about that exact thing, and I always felt she was able to balance being biased and not being biased, regarding where to go. She's played a big part in allowing me to focus purely on the game.

Besides her, FaZe was the closest thing I had to family in the past three years. It would be pretty hard to say who I spent more time with and that means that I was with the team quite a bit, and I feel like all of us have gotten really close. I know the next project is gonna be where I might have to mature a little bit. FaZe just allowed me to be how I wanted to be. There are very funny individuals on the team, lots of immaturity, and in a way it brought this kid out of me again, and it was really fun to have that for a while.

But I'm also excited to advance and grow more as a person and player and try to achieve something even greater in my career. It feels like I go back to the team that drafted me to try to bring them that Major or the championships that they've been searching for again, and for me that's a special feeling, especially if I'm able to accomplish that.

You were talking about that Vitality were an option, and I'm sure people will question, why not join a team that has so much future in players like ZywOo and Spinx and is already set up for you to just join and be able to continue their success?

I really like apEX, I had some personal talks with him because I needed to give both parties a fair chance, to understand what is there for me. With Vitality, Magisk is a pure anchor, and I don't think I am that anymore. I have so much experience on FaZe playing these roles, I like being able to control rotations, I like being able to move around the map and read the game, and when you're a pure anchor you're solely responsible for pulling someone to your site and asking for help, or playing a little risky, or playing really passive. Playing a pure rotator position is where I get to use all my best elements. I feel like I am a very good supportive player, but at the same time I feel like I can read the game while I can be in the right spots, and I can frag out.

At the end of the Vitality conversations apEX did say that they would have shifted positions for me, but I'm not trying to go somewhere where I fuck up the system and I'm moving people around, cos then if it doesn't work out it's even a bigger failure in my opinion. But that could have been a very fun project. I really like flameZ, I think he's a super funny, innocent kid, and it would have been nice to play with him. But the roles just didn't check out.

You touched on your FaZe teammates and how you guys treat each other… I saw your Instagram picture where you said something about the team being happy for you, and I'm not sure if me and other people in the community read too much into what that meant. How are your teammates taking the news?

That picture summarizes the team atmosphere and the mental state and philosophy that the players share. That picture is so nice to look at because they're all looking at one person holding a trophy, and they're happy as if they're holding the trophy themselves. I think it's been that way throughout FaZe quite a lot, and that picture is so nice to look at because I feel like sometimes teammates don't talk that much about each other, people usually give the praise to karrigan or whatever, so it just feels good to feel like they looked at me in a way that I helped them accomplish this.

But that picture had nothing to do with me leaving. A lot of people read into that photo, but it was not in any way a goodbye photo (laughs). I guess you could look at every trophy lift as a fucking goodbye photo, because honestly that's how I feel when I'm looking at those photos.

I think for sure broky and ropz must be thinking at some point that we're gonna reunite in our careers, because we're all like the same age, so I think for now it's not like a true goodbye, because I believe that we will cross paths again. That's the same for NEO or karrigan, I feel like at some point maybe I'm coached by karrigan or whatever and I'm an IGL at the time. I feel like anything can happen, I'm at the point of my career where it feels like I've been playing for so long, but I have so much more to go.

How do you feel seeing people calling for you not to go?

In China, there were signs saying, 'Stay!', and you have no idea the amount of messages I get. At some point it does make me emotional, if only these people knew that it's not an option anymore, and it hasn't been an option for a long time. Maybe it does make more sense to them before any winning feeling came, and it also might put an asterisk on all of our victories, given that maybe we felt like we didn't have any pressure.

But even in Sydney I felt like there was pressure, cos everyone wanted to perform, it was the first CS2 event. Regardless of team state, this is a chance to make history in the new game early on.

Achieving that success with the entire team knowing this is happening, is it partly because of that lack of pressure, does it play a factor at all?

I think it could, but what probably brought our wins or contributed a lot to our wins is probably just our friendship and happiness to be together on a friend level, knowing we're not gonna be teammates anymore. Everyone was cherishing the final tournaments together and trying to make the most of it, because no one wants to end on a bad note. Imagine we play three events, we lose everything, and then I leave, it's a terrible feeling.

I think this is like a very bittersweet ending for everyone, and obviously they are gonna get a good player, I think they're still gonna be at the top. If I know these guys as well as I do, they're not gonna leave the top three. I wish them success, I don't want anything bad for these guys, they're legends of the game. And it would be fun to be against them at the top with the new Liquid lineup.

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In part two of the interview, which will be released on Sunday, Twistzz discusses the decision to return to Liquid, each of his new teammates, Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller's leadership style, reuniting with Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado, and his goal to bring the organization the victories they have been missing.