ropz: "People look at me like I'm s1mple, ZywOo, or donk, but I'm not"

"I never asked to be a star player, I'm just a guy who is fine being a stable rock for the team," added the Estonian.

FaZe have been in a slump ever since Vitality ended their grand-final streak at ESL Pro League Season 19 in the top-eight stage, and early exits at the Esports World Cup and BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2024 have done little to change the narrative. Their lacklustre form meant the team led by Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen came into Cologne with an outside chance for the title, but no one considered them the main favorites.

Despite that, FaZe have shown improved form in Cologne and beat Falcons and Liquid to make the playoffs, with their second victory against Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken and company containing a historic 1-11 comeback.

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FaZe to LANXESS after outrageous 1-11 comeback over Liquid

Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool, whose team will face off against SAW in the quarter-finals, spoke to HLTV ahead of the playoffs and talked about FaZe's road to the top-six, his individual form, and the general state of CS2.

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ropz, you are through to the playoffs after a very close and hectic series. What went through your head during that game?

It's hard to say, there were a lot of different things. The end of Nuke against Liquid was tough, we all felt like we should have won, and the match could have ended 2-0. But we've learned from our past mistakes, we've had many rough losses in the past few tournaments. The one thing we can take away is that we are staying more positive after each loss, and that's helping us. We found a way to reset for Mirage, even though it didn't look like that on paper, but we went into Mirage with positive vibes.

We didn't have a great start there, that's for sure, but we remained calm. You saw it after the pistol round, we were all happy and showing it, so I think that's a nice development and something that took us over the line. The comms and everything, they were calm, almost too calm for FaZe, I would say, because it's quite hectic sometimes. And throughout the whole CT side, it felt like they were just pressured to close it out, and we were just waiting for them to make the mistakes.

You are now going to face SAW. If you beat them, you will match up with Vitality in the semifinals. Are you confident about your playoff chances in Cologne?

We are very confident. Even in the match against Vitality, we could have won 2-0 after we took them to overtime on Dust2. I felt like we had a chance there to close it out. The rounds on Anubis against Vitality were really close, a couple of clutches there, which they won. So far, [we have had] very promising results here in Cologne, and we'll just see how the playoffs go. If we get activated in the playoffs like we usually did in the past, we are definitely aiming for a trophy.

You had a very good performance on the last map yesterday, and we have seen some more stability coming out of you in this tournament. What can you say about your slump and how you've been dealing with that?

I mean, it's just a regular slump. People look at me like I'm s1mple, ZywOo, or donk, but I'm not one of them, definitely not. I never said I am, and I never asked to be a star player. I'm just a guy who is fine to be a stable rock for the team and provides consistency when it matters.

And to get a performance like that when the team needed you most, would you say that it is a confidence boost for you?

For sure. Closing out Mirage like that and getting some impact rounds in the comeback felt good. And with each round that went on, I felt like I was getting more into the game and just feeling it more and more. So that was definitely nice.

After the match, karrigan said that he's back to micromanaging. What can you say about the impact that this had on the team's game? And does this suit you better?

It's tough to say if it suits us better. Obviously, it comes down to the scenario we find ourselves in. It is a way that karrigan calls sometimes, he used to do it in MOUZ, and he used to do it with stand-ins in FaZe.

When things are not so set in stone, we have to play more structured to get the trades going, because I think trading has been a big problem for our T sides. So now with karrigan just taking over a bit more, we are moving more as a pack and as a unit. I think getting those trades down is going to help us.

You've been very critical about the current state of CS2, and SPUNJ said you had a list of things you wanted Valve to change. What is your opinion about the current state of the game, and do you think that this has played a role in some of your struggles in recent weeks and months?

It's in a strange place right now. I'm not sure it has to do anything with my struggles, maybe a bit with motivation, but not much. I think there are many poor things happening right now. FPS issues are one of the biggest things. I am a native user, 1920, so I think you take a pretty big hit sometimes on the practice PCs. We have pretty good PCs here in ESL or IEM Cologne, and other tournaments as well, but it's just not enough for CS2.

When you play on 360Hz monitors, you expect 360 FPS running all the time, but you don't really get that nowadays. You need to have the best of the best PCs to do that, and I feel like we get that in the tournament setup, but not in the practice setup, so that's where you get hurt a bit. There are some more things with CS2, definitely, MR12 and the economy are some things I will mention, and I'll leave it there. There are some smaller things, but I'll leave it there.

Do you think Valve are open to discussing these things?

They're improving FPS with each update, I feel like they're trying, at least, even though it has gone down from the data I've seen. FPS is something they'll always look at, you know, to improve, but I'm not sure what their opinion is. Some say humans can only see 60Hz per second or whatever, and some say more, so I don't know. I mean, the MR12 and the economy thing, it's also something that might change, or it might not, you never know with Valve. Someone might be thinking of a great solution, but maybe actually nothing is happening there, so we'll never know.

You guys are now through to the playoffs. We all know how good FaZe can be when you get into playoff mode. What is the minimum goal here? Or are you guys just taking it as a bonus?

That's a good question, actually. When we came into this tournament, karrigan mentioned that inside the team, we come here with no pressure. In a way, we lowered the expectations. For us, the expectation has always been to win the trophy, but here, we're just trying to show the best FaZe of recent times, at least.

Make a playoff appearance at a minimum and just take it from there, and so far, we've done exactly what we wanted. Now we can think about the trophy, but coming into the tournament, we set ourselves lower goals because we needed to take a step back, and I think it has worked so far.