FaZe cut Apogee's fairytale short in Bucharest

karrigan ended the dreams of the Polish team his wife works for as a sports psychologist.

FaZe have progressed to PGL Bucharest's playoffs after moving past Polish underdogs Betclic.

Map pick Dust2 was a 13-5 breeze for Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and company, before a closer Ancient where the score was 7-7 before FaZe accelerated to close the match out 13-8.

There was a personal element to the match, with FaZe skipper karrigan facing off against the team his wife, Anna Suder, works for as a sports psychologist.

But it was FaZe's firepower — and the varied calling of their captain — that proved more important than mentality in good games for all four of their fragging core, including out-of-form duo Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants and Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard.

The two teams were the best at pistol rounds in the group stage, Betclic even winning both pistols for six maps in a row, but FaZe's skill helped them undermine a big win condition for the Poles as they won three out of four pistols in the series.

A quiet game from youngster Jakub "⁠jcobbb⁠" Pietruszewski was also unwelcome for Betclic as the team learned about the true challenge of facing a tier one team in a high-stakes 2-2 Swiss match.

Apogee rise to 24th on VRS from Bucharest run

Betclic's fairytale may have ended in defeat but their run at Bucharest has pushed them from 50th at the end of March to 24th on Valve's Regional Standings, according to our forecast.

It's just a shame for them that the run happened after the MRQ cutoff on April 7, keeping them out of Major contention.

Regardless, wins over Astralis and The MongolZ showed the potential of the team and earned the respect of anyone in the scene that doubted they could perform on LAN.

Whether they'll be able to repeat the success without winning 12 pistol rounds in a row is a different question, but it's a team to keep an eye on in the coming months.

FaZe's quest to end trophy drought before the one-year mark

FaZe had an up-and-down group stage, losing to Complexity and Astralis, but will be pleased they got the job done against a dangerous opponent.

Without an arena for playoffs, however, motivation will have to come from within — with karrigan pointing to the team's 361-day wait for a trophy since they lifted the IEM Chengdu trophy on April 14 last year as a potential source.

"We're back to it," frozen told James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks on broadcast post-game, "struggling in group stages, and now hopefully winning the tournament."

But the Slovakian was frank about the team's struggles: "We rewatched the [Complexity] game and we haven't seen such a bad level from us in a long time."

He also admitted that the team were "maybe taking [deep runs] for granted," talking about showing up with "fire" to get back to the spot FaZe were in twelve months ago.

But with a wide open playoffs and broky powering up with a 1.47 series rating, it's still not impossible that the drought ends on 364 days this Sunday.