frozen on floating Vertigo: "It was a good chance to put our balls on the table"

FaZe won the veto and mind game against Spirit to get revenge for IEM Katowice and move into the semi-finals.

David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský is into his second Major semi-final, his first coming in Rio with MOUZ, but FaZe only have eyes for the trophy.

By defeating Spirit — who dominated Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and company in Katowice's grand final — FaZe have lived up to their status as World No. 1 ahead of a tricky semi-final against Vitality.

And they did so in typical fashion. karrigan floated usual permaban Vertigo and it was picked by Spirit as the decider, an error that proved fatal after a 7-0 and 12-5 FaZe Clan lead on the map. Spirit, somehow, clawed back seven series points to force overtime but as the pressure grew FaZe rallied to knock out the de facto Major favorite.

Spirit were affected by illness, having no team practice in the three off days according to Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev, and it showed to frozen: "I don't think they changed a single thing since last time we played them," he tells HLTV. "We knew what they were going to do and we just went with it. It worked."

The new challenge for FaZe is Vitality, the team that denied them back-to-back trophies at BLAST Premier Fall Final and World Final's grand finals. frozen only joined FaZe for the latter, but after tasting revenge against Spirit more is on the agenda for the Slovakian and his squad.

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Here with frozen, the morning after the Spirit match. A bit of a banger yesterday, what was your initial feeling waking up today?

Obviously happy we closed it out. It would have been sad to lose that game, especially on Vertigo after having such a lead. There were some close rounds, but overall I'm just happy we closed it out.

Going back to Mirage, you were on a real heater that game, that 4K and that Impact, and your Mirage has been okay recently. What did you think of that pick, any surprise?

Not really, it's one of their best maps, right? I wanted them to pick Mirage to be honest because last time we played them we had a good start two times [but lost]. This time, we came better prepared, I don't think they changed a single thing since last time we played them. I'm just happy we beat them on their own map.

How much prep was involved? Even from the outside, there were obvious ones like on the eco round, every anti-eco donk is swinging Underpass for info and you guys were all ready for him. How did you get ready for them?

We obviously prepped, but as I said I don't feel they changed much. They are doing their protocols, they are doing the same things. We knew donk was gonna swing Underground at some point, you know. So yeah, [laughs], we knew what they were going to do and we just went with it. It worked.

Is it the same for Nuke? Was there not much of a change there? Because I think it's three in a row that's not gone your way versus them but all been quite close. What was the difference there?

On our T side, in my honest opinion, I think we could have been leaning towards Outside because they played such a compact style around A with three people there. They have good protocols on Nuke as well, they are one of the very good teams on it. We had a good start but they came back, and on CT side we kind of had them at one point, but we overcooked ourselves I would say. It went their way this time but we could have closed it out too. At the end of the day, it wouldn't have been such an entertaining game if we ended it on Nuke because we wouldn't have had Vertigo.

We've got to talk about Vertigo as well. You said on stage that you weren't too prepared for it, was that because you expected Ancient, with how prep-heavy they are and so on?

We had game plans on Vertigo as well, we obviously prepared it since there was a chance of it coming through the veto. Me personally, I wanted Ancient since I had some good plans for them there. But it was Vertigo, as a decider map, and the first time we have played it in an official in the quarters of a Major. It was a good chance to put our balls on the table and do what we want to do. I don't think they could prepare much since we haven't played it. We knew what they were going to do a little bit, but it was way more about what we were going to do than what they were going to bring.

We know karrigan has liked to float Vertigo before, but do you think your arrival, as someone who played it with MOUZ, makes it more of a potent threat with you on the Ramp?

Yeah, I played Vertigo on MOUZ so I have my experiences on the map. It's just a matter of getting more experience in officials, this was a very good game that we can learn a lot from. It's going to be a good map for us in the future, even now with only a little bit of practice it's pretty good.

I think you said "choke" on stage, but I think we saw every FaZe Clan on stage. The arena buff, the Boston choke, but still closing it out and returning to the stage buff. What was it like being on stage again, you've done it before but was the Major different?

I don't think it was different. It felt very calm. On Vertigo, we had a big lead but it didn't feel like we were choking. You couldn't hear it on the comms. You didn't feel it in the people. There were so many rounds that we could have closed it out, like...

Two one-on-ones.

Exactly. Just small percentages we missed to actually close it earlier. We just kept believing, once it came to Overtime and we got two T rounds I was confident we could close it on CT.

On karrigan's type of calling. With MR12 it feels like there are a lot of prep-heavy teams, pages and pages of notes, but obviously karrigan wants to be the one mid-rounding. What's that adaptation been like, does it play to his strengths? And you've got the notes too, right?

karrigan has a really good balance of anti-stratting people, and using the stuff we already have in the playbook, maybe changing it a little bit. He's very unique in this sense, and I'm happy to be with him.

On to semis, you've got your revenge over Spirit but looking further back it was the FaZe-Vitality rivalry, so what do you make of that matchup?

It's going to be a great game again. Last time, they beat us in World Final, but every team left in the Major is a title contender. Even if we beat a contender in the quarters there is still Vitality in front of us. And when we win, it'll be another great team. It's going to be a good game, it's just map by map, match by match. But I expect a good game.

What's it been like within the team? We heard ropz was a bit ill from rain, maybe some others too, ZywOo [and zont1x] too of course, but has it been affecting you too?

You can probably say the same about donk too, this one-man hyper-carry but I think, so far, we have showed that we can rely on people popping off individually. But, a lot of the games we won here we won as a team, not by people popping off. They can have ZywOo but we have individuals, we have a good team as well. Anything can happen on a good day.

More on the illness side, are you all recovered now?

I hope so. There was some sickness here and there but it's pretty rough to recover while tournaments are going on. There's a very low amount of time to spend at home and look after the body. Under the circumstances we have, our guys are trying their best to be in their best shape.

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hally interview: FaZe defeat, lack of practice due to illness, Vertigo decision

One more thing on broky, that was the proper arena broky yesterday. We all see the overpeeks sometimes, but this is when it works, as such a valuable part of your team. What do you make of him?

It's great to see him coming back to his IEM Katowice 2022 MVP form that he once had. I'm just happy that he is back to his level, and to have him on the team.

Are you dreaming of the MOUZ final?

It would be a cool storyline, but same for us, same for them, there's a couple of teams we need to beat in order to be there. I don't want to get far ahead of ourselves, it would be good but we will see.