rain on Twistzz's calling: "It almost feels like playing karrigan"

FaZe have one final match against MOUZ for a chance to reach the arena days in Rio.

FaZe are one best-of-three away from making it to the arena in Rio de Janeiro, although their run so far hasn't been easy. A best-of-one loss to FURIA in the opener was followed by two series against paiN and Liquid in the lower bracket.

One final best-of-three remains, against MOUZ, a team they are so far undefeated against since the release of CS2. The two teams have met seven times since October 2023 and every time Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's men have gotten one over Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek and company.

This time around FaZe hope to make it eight out of eight against MOUZ in order to reach the business end of a tournament in Brazil for the first time since ESL One Belo Horizonte in 2018.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the interview here.

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Congrats, another win over Liquid. You've been a bit of a bogey team for them, constantly beating Twistzz in this new lineup. How does it feel to keep playing spoiler to them?

It is an old teammate so it feels a little bit good of course, but at the same time I have no hard feelings or bad feelings towards Russ [Twistzz] at all. It sucks for them to keep losing and sucks to keep meeting us because I think they're doing very well and they play very close games versus top teams.

It seems like it's only us they're really struggling with. I feel like a big part of it is this Cologne comeback, I think it has a mental barrier for them at the moment and once they get past that it'll be some harder games.

I was looking and they've really only lost to NAVI, Vitality, and you since this lineup with ultimate was created. So it really does seem like they have some mental block or issue when it comes to you.

Yeah, and even those games they are playing versus them, the losses, they're so close. They could have won versus NAVI, Vitality, it's only us who are able to steamroll them for some reason.

Other than the mental block from that Cologne loss, is there anything you think might be behind it?

I don't know. Maybe karrigan and Russ have a little bit of a similar thought process in the calling. It almost feels like playing Finn [karrigan] sometimes, and Finn is also like, 'Ah, I knew it's coming, I knew it, this is what I would call,' you know? It's a little bit of friendly banter in that sense, so maybe it's just a clash between teams.

Is that also a big advantage to FaZe because Finn has been calling so long and if Russ is trying to emulate his style, the experience advantage is in karrigan's favor?

Yeah. I think you can see it both ways, Russ can remember a lot that karrigan is doing as well, right? But for sure right now, karrigan has his number and we're playing some good Counter-Strike against them.

FaZe have had this rough period for quite a while, and it's been hard to stabilize, but it seems like it's getting a little better. You had the Fall Final result, and coming here now, it's not the smoothest start. You had a win over paiN yesterday, now a win here. Can you tell me about the process of trying to get back into your form?

Personally, my form at the tournament is pretty shit, to be honest. I'm trying to fix it, I don't know what it is, I don't feel the game and I'm not as comfortable as I was at BLAST or even Cologne, so I'm trying to work my way through it.

As a team, I think we're just improving at the moment. The loss against FURIA, I don't know, we lost to FURIA in Brazil, they have the Brazil buff a little bit, they smacked MOUZ as well. I think we're still improving and the results from tournament to tournament are going in the right direction and I think we're happy with that so far.

One of the changes between Fall Final and here was the animation update. Has that affected you at all? Have you felt a difference?

Not really, no.

It's interesting. I've talked to a few teams, and they've all said the same thing, but people online have felt a bit of a difference, and others said they haven't.

I don't really feel anything in that sense. It's mainly a confidence issue for me.

This turned into a pretty dangerous lower bracket. NAVI was almost knocked down as well.

[laughs] It could've been a rough one.

And MOUZ is here too. MOUZ and Complexity are playing right now, it seems like MOUZ are likely to make it right now. They won map one and are up 2-0 right now, but what are your thoughts on that potential match and how the lower bracket has panned out with this hard path after all the troubles you've already had?

No, for sure. It's been a while since we played MOUZ. I don't remember exactly when it was. Was it Chengdu when we played them last?

We can check. Yeah, it was.

Yeah, it's been a long time, but also we still haven't lost to them in CS2, so we're still on an undefeated streak versus them. Going undefeated into that game as well, the confidence is going to be high, but both teams have changed a lot, and it's going to be a fun match no matter who it is.

You said you're working to get your individual form back. One of the other things was that ropz was struggling for form for a while, and then broky had his own difficulties. It seems like everyone is taking turns to have peaks and troughs. Is there anything specific around that, difficulties with the game, any idea what might be contributing toward that?

I'm not quite sure. I felt that I was only going upward after the break. I played okay in Cologne, and I did my job at BLAST as well. Right now, I don't know if it's the jetlag or what it is, but my head is not crystal clear. Other than that, it's nice to have Robin [ropz] back, I can feel it on him as well. He's back to his old self it feels like and I'm just expecting him to get better and better throughout the season.

And anything on the chance to play in front of the Rio crowd since you're only one best-of-three away now?

Yeah, it would be amazing to play in front of the crowd, I haven't played in front of the crowd in Brazil since Belo Horizonte, I think. Because we didn't make it at the Major or at IEM Rio. This is the first best-of-three we've won after a very long time, like six years in Brazil, versus paiN, so being able to play in the arena would be a great thing.