rain: "We feel countered, especially on Nuke"

rain believes that FaZe's time at the top has given teams the ability to study and counteract the team's game.

FaZe have had a stellar run of form since the switch to CS2, notching three LAN titles and eight grand final appearances in a row, but that dominance has started to decline since their quarter-final exit at ESL Pro League Season 19.

A loss to a G2 featuring stand-in Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip in the quarter-finals of IEM Dallas rubbed salt in the wound as FaZe were denied another final berth.

Arriving in London for the BLAST Premier Spring Final, FaZe rifler Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard sat down with HLTV to discuss how the team has been approaching the final event of the season, how their consistent success has given opponents opportunities to counter them, and how Dust2 could change FaZe's approach to the veto, among a wide range of topics.

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Everyone knows your narrative during this season. A lot of finals, but a little bit of a drop-off from your very high standards during the last two events. How are you treating this event?

We're treating it as any event during the season. We're coming to win, for sure. There's been a little bit of a hiccup to our final streak in the last tournaments, so we're looking to get back to a final and lift the trophy in London.

What do you think happened over the last two events? Everyone knows how hard it is to keep those standards, but how hard is it to try and fix what was going wrong mid-season?

Obviously, the fixes we tried to implement haven't worked. We came from Chengdu to Pro League thinking pretty highly of ourselves, and after crashing out the way we did, it put our confidence a little bit down. We had some good team talks after the tournament in Dallas as well. We're trying to work our way back, figure out what's wrong, and try to change some stuff up.

How do you look at the season in terms of all the finals? Because you probably want to win a few more, but how is it looking back now?

Honestly, just winning Chengdu has been a little bit disappointing, even though we've been to three finals this year. We really wanted to win the Major as well, we had a shot there. Overall, I think we are a better team than NAVI. They had a great tournament, but looking back at it, it sucks to lose it. That was the tournament where we had a chance to cement a good run for us this year. But, overall, we were a little bit disappointed with the results.

You hit the ground running since adding frozen. Did you even have to think about integrating him, or is that still an ongoing process?

He came in with a hot start, and he kind of just took Twistzz's roles, in a way. Of course, he has a say in most of the things, but I think we're still implementing a little bit. Now it's more about rebalancing everything and figuring out a way that we can play differently.

Being at the top for so long now, everybody knows how we're playing. Everybody's seen our games, and we can feel it when we're playing. We feel countered, especially on Nuke. We've played so many Nukes, and we keep picking it, and we just feel like we're getting smashed on the map. There are definitely some things we have to figure out.

Do you think Dust 2 could help you guys? Your Overpass wasn't quite there, and you stopped playing it a bit.

Yeah, the last few tournaments have been a bit rough with the changes on Dust2 and Vertigo, and we haven't really had a chance to play it as much as we would like. After Dallas, we had time to work on it, but I don't know if everyone on my team loves Dust2 as much as I do. I really like the map, I've always had a fun time playing it, and I think having Dust2 there instead of Overpass is going to be good coming into next season for sure.

We know what karrigan is like with his vetoes, but what's it like within the team? Do you like having that one comfort pick, like Nuke, and then maybe the curveball is the decider or what you float? Do you like having that one strong map and just knowing you can go 1-0? Is that something you actually aim for, or do you want a more balanced pool?

We definitely aim to have more than one strong map for sure, Nuke has just been fitting us very well. But karrigan wants to have three or four maps that we can choose, ones that we can feel very confident on. And at that moment, Nuke was our favorite map to play.

The veto is decided on the day before, the days before, when we talk about it a lot and decide as a team, it's never just one person choosing. We all have to agree and make sure we're all comfortable on the map, that's how we decide what we're playing.

How are you feeling about finishing the season? How much prep do you put into an event like this?

I think this event is very important. Based on the lackluster results we've had in Dallas and Pro League, it's very important for us to come here and have a good showing, get to the final, and try to see how far we can get up in the rankings during the break. We want to get the number one spot back, and I don't know if there's a chance if we win here, but winning here is for sure the ultimate goal.

You have a bit of a tough group. You've got a chance for more revenge over NAVI, maybe Astralis again, who caused you some problems in group stages more than playoffs. What do you make of your group and SAW, because it's going to be hard to prepare for a team like that right now?

It's going to be a bit of unknown territory going into the SAW game, we don't really know how they're going to play and what they're going to pick. Their map pool is a little bit odd for us when we're looking at the veto as well, but I think we'll figure out a solution to get past the first game and maybe try to win a group this year. I don't think we've won a group in CS2 yet, actually, so it's time to win one.

I wanted to ask about your individuals as well. What do you make of your team in terms of the balance? Since frozen has come in, maybe ropz has taken a bit of a step back. What do you think of how you're balancing your firepower now?

I don't think we're firing on all cylinders. People are burnt out from all the traveling and the ups and downs after going to the finals every time. You don't get any days to relax at tournaments, you play all the time.

It's all CS, and then you travel home and have one day off, and then CS all the time [again]. We're all getting a little bit burnt out at this point, so I think [we need] a good break, and next season is when we're aiming to reclaim our reign for sure.

You're back in London, what do you make of the area? Are UK fans going to be on your side?

I'm not sure. I have some good memories and some bad memories from London. We played a final here versus SK in 2017, I think it was ECS. It was the last tournament I played with contact lenses, and my contact lens fell out mid-round during the final, so I had to play without them. Every time we come to London, karrigan mentions if I have my glasses out [laughs]. I have some good and some bad memories from here. I don't think we've lifted a trophy in London before, so it would be good to lift one here.