rain: "I feel some nerves"

"I don't know if it's me individually or if my teammates feel it a little bit, it just feels like that in the way we are playing," rain added.

FaZe have their backs against the wall in Copenhagen. The No. 1-ranked team in the world came into the Major as one of the title favorites alongside Spirit, Vitality, and G2, barely missing a step since needing to swap Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken for David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský.

Runners-up finishes at BLAST World Final and IEM Katowice led into a strong campaign through the Europe RMR, from which Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's side advanced with a 3-1 record with a loss to G2 and wins over 9 Pandas, Falcons, and Eternal Fire.

Their return to the server for PGL Major Copenhagen's Elimination Stage has left much to be desired, however, with the team getting sent down to the 1-2 pool after getting absolutely battered 13-1 by Eternal Fire on the second day of play.

A hard-fought three-map victory over Imperial has helped the European team avoid early elimination from karrigan's home Major, but Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard admitted in an interview with HLTV that he, at the very least, is feeling some nerves as the team isn't "living up to our full potential at the moment."

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Still alive. Got a little close after you lost Anubis, but still in the running. How are you feeling after that with managing to stay in the tournament?

For sure it feels good in the sense of staying in the tournament and not going out, that would really suck to lose today. Imperial played a really good game, they made us be on our tippy toes the entire time, so credit to them for that.

There's also a little bit of nerves from us, I don't think we're living up to our full potential at the moment. We still have some maturing to do in the tournament for sure.

Why do you think those nerves are there?

I'm not sure actually. I don't know if it's me individually, but I feel some nerves, I don't know if my teammates feel a little bit of nerves. It just feels like that in the way we are playing. Not very put-together in the sense of how we were playing in practice before the tournament, so I think there is some stuff that we have to mature into, as I said.

Talking about the practice before the tournament, can you tell how that went, how long you were bootcamping, what the scenario was? I know at the RMR, ropz told us that you knew you had to work on your Overpass a bit, and then obviously yesterday there was the game Eternal Fire-

(rain smiles) A little blunder...

-Yeah, tell me about that a bit.

Yeah of course, the loss on Overpass was a bit rough. We did have a focus day on it at the bootcamp, but I don't think we managed to get to the point we were very comfortable on the map. We can still play it very good, but we need some more work on it for sure. And we had a seven-day bootcamp before this, so we feel pretty prepared coming into it.

In terms of that map pool, we've seen a couple of the bigger teams struggling here. It's harder to blame the transition to CS2 now because it's been so long, but where do you think the struggles are coming from, both for your team but also in general?

I'm not sure. We're still pretty young with David [frozen] in that sense, and there's still some more fine-tuning to do. But right now, I'm not quite sure, I feel like we're underperforming for our standards, and we've just got to wake up a little bit. It feels like having pretty slow starts and it's been a little bit rough.

Since frozen came in, it seems like he has taken over some of the fragging from ropz a bit, ropz was obviously crazy when CS2 first out. Can you tell me what you're seeing from that transition and integration, how that's going with frozen almost taking over as the star?

Yeah, in a sense. I think Robin [ropz] is still THE star in the team, he has the potential to be at least a top-three player in the world on any given day. They just have a good mix at the moment, there are still some things we have to figure out, but they're doing a very good job at combining it.

frozen came from MOUZ and he played a similar style as ropz there, so of course ropz had to give a little bit, and we all have to give a little bit to David. We signed a star player and we need him to be the star player for us as well.

It was mentioned that ropz is sick a bit, or not feeling so well. The first two games he played were decent, but the next three maps were a little rougher, until this Mirage.

Yeah, it's not only ropz who's been sick. After Sydney, I think I came back and I was sick, runny nose, coughing for almost fucking three months. So I don't know what happened, I think Robin got sick again right after Katowice as well, so it's been a little bit rough on the sickness part. But I don't know how much that affects him in-game to be honest, he's like a machine, you know? (laughs)

That karrigan 1vs2 on Nuke seemed to inspire you a bit, and then obviously Anubis went a little wayward. Can you walk me through the series from your side a bit with dropping that map, because it seemed like the body language also dropped there?

Anubis is a map we still haven't figured out 100% yet, but on our CT side we have a lot of stuff that we didn't get to play now. Maybe the mood changed a little bit on Anubis and they got rolling, and they are a good Anubis team. They played good, they play in a style we have a hard time countering, so they did a great job on that map for sure.

As I said, 2-2 record now. It's not been the start you would've wanted at the Major. I'm sure the Eternal Fire game in particular probably knocked the wind out of your sails a bit as well.

Yeah... it's how it is sometimes. We beat G2 in Katowice on stage, they beat us at the RMR. We beat Eternal Fire at the RMR, they beat us here. This is how CS is and when you're playing at this level, everybody can beat everybody if they have a better day. Just one of those days in that game, and I don't think we're going to think too much about it.

One best-of-three away from making the playoffs, how are you feeling going into this last series tomorrow with the Major on the line and everything like that?

I don't know who we play yet, but doesn't really matter at this point in the tournament and how we put ourselves in. We've got to beat everybody to win, so right now the focus is just on getting to the stage, and doing our best for karrigan to play in front of the home crowd for the first Major of CS2.