karrigan: "This is the first time in my career where I'm really drained"

The Danish veteran spoke on the exhaustion felt by the team after seven consecutive LAN finals.

With their hard-fought win over Astralis in the semifinal of IEM Chengdu, FaZe have secured their seventh-consecutive LAN final, with the international squad set to face off against MOUZ for the shot to hoist a trophy for the first time since CS Asia Championships.

Despite the team's phenomenal consistency so far in CS2, making the finals of every event they have played so far, FaZe have struggled to clear the final hurdle since their initial streak at the beginning of the game's lifespan, notching four consecutive runner-up finishes, including at the recent PGL Major Copenhagen.

Shortly after his team brought it over the line versus Astralis, Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen spoke to HLTV regarding the close series, how he views the matchup against MOUZ, and the toll that the team has endured after racking up a number of deep runs while still coming short of event wins.

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karrigan, you just defeated Astralis, getting revenge for the group stage loss. What changed? Was it the stage buff, the fact that you had material to study, or a little bit of both?

I think it was a little bit of both. Obviously, learning how to play Nuke, I think that was the key thing. I also think we played a great T side of Nuke today, found some good situations. Yeah, didn't expect the Ancient, the way they played, A rush, B rush, but I think the key scenario was the 4-on-2 at 4-0 on Ancient; I think if we win that the CT side of Ancient goes differently. Overall, coming into Inferno, it was hard to figure out how to play, but I think we just adapted really good on the fly, and I think that was the key difference today.

Talking a little bit about that Ancient, it seemed that everything was going well for you during the first stages of the game, and then that 1v4 clutch completely flipped the game on its head. Do you think that took the wind out of your sails and gave Astralis the momentum moving forward?

I don't think it took any wind out of our sails, I think we still tried to play the same as we wanted to even when we lose the round, that's what we always do, but I think it gave them extra momentum to kinda keep rushing. I think if we shut it down there I don't think they're gonna keep calling the rushes. I just think they played great in some of the scenarios, and they made it uncomfortable on Ancient once again.

Talking a little bit about Inferno, that was a map that this iteration of Astralis hadn't played, so you had no material to prepare for this. What was the discussion like heading into this final game?

To be honest, I didn't expect Inferno to come through. I think we expected Mirage, the same veto, but I guess our Mirage has been looking good lately, so they wanted to try to throw a curveball. We just came in with a gameplan that we kinda had against Liquid based on what we have done lately and what we did at the Major, and tried to just learn from that game, and I think that's why we had a great T side today to close out the game.

You're now going to face MOUZ in the grand final. You've won the last six matches against them, five of which on LAN. How confident are you heading into the final?

I think it's not so much about the matchup, it's more about how fatigued we are. It's not an excuse or anything, I think this is the first time in my career where I'm really drained when it comes to traveling and playing. I think we're a team that plays almost double the rounds of any teams on LAN, which is insane, right? I think it just depends on us. I think MOUZ have always been great in CS2, even when they had frozen I think we were the ones stopping them from maybe winning a trophy here and there. Definitely gonna be a hard matchup, and they're really hungry to prove a point and beat us, so we need to be very focused and hopefully everyone gets a good night's rest so we can power up again in the final.

I spoke with torzsi earlier today after they won their semifinal, and he said that his team is also feeling a little bit exhausted, so he expects a scrappy game. Do you think that's how things will turn out tomorrow?

I don't think it comes down to scrappy, I think it's energy and mental fortitude. That's the thing I can feel the most; I mentally crashed in the quarter-final, I couldn't get anything going, I didn't have the extra power or energy. I think I had a little bit more energy today, but I'm so focused on the game. I think for us, it's more about keeping the same energy as we did on map one and map three today. It can always be chaotic, and I don't think that's only because of people being exhausted, but more about how the game turns out.

You managed to keep your streak of grand final appearances in CS2. It's now seven LAN tournaments in a row, eight if you consider Thunderpick World Championship, which is a pretty remarkable achievement. You were on the losing side of the last four finals, is this the one where everything changes?

(laughs) I wish! I can't promise. It's just always a scenario, we're meeting MOUZ, we've won many times against them, we never know when it's gonna switch. I think that matchup-wise it's gonna be interesting, and we're gonna do everything we can. I told myself before this tournament started, don't have too high expectations, but here we are, one game away from winning the tournament. I think it will be good for the team to come over the hurdle, but if you don't win, it is a part of the game. We can be proud of the consistency we show, and nobody can take that away from us, so we just need to finish the job and come 100% tomorrow to finish the trophy.

How important would it be to end that streak of second-place finishes and get another trophy toward the Intel Grand Slam?

It would be super important to just win a trophy, it doesn't matter if it's a Grand Slam or another thing. I think just one week after losing a Major final, winning another trophy is just going to make the exhaustion a little less hard, because we are traveling and playing all the finals, and we're losing and we don't get the high of the highs. It's an important game, but right now I don't think we're able to think about the Grand Slam, you need to win Katowice or Cologne to even consider winning a Grand Slam. Right now, let's just try to learn what we can, and pray that everyone's feeling the best they can tomorrow, and hopefully, that will be enough.