rain: "There are still a lot of things we can get better at"

The Norwegian rifler thinks FaZe were far from their best in their opening series in Melbourne.

FaZe got their IEM Melbourne campaign off to a winning start as they moved past paiN in two maps. The series was much closer than expected, as the Brazilian side, who are missing IGL Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt due to health reasons, pushed FaZe to their limit on both Anubis and Inferno.

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"I think people weren't in the zone when we started, and we were a bit slow," Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard told HLTV after the match. "Hopefully, it's just going to keep going better as the tournament progresses."

FaZe came into this event off the back of a third-place finish at PGL Bucharest. With the two events being just one week apart, the team did not get any practice in before the trip to Australia. "It's more about just being here individually and taking it from there," he said.

rain also offered his support to Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants, who came under fierce criticism for his performance in the Bucharest semi-final match against Falcons, saying his teammate just needs to find the flow and get more relaxed to be one of the best AWPers in the world.

FaZe won the last Big Event held in Australia, IEM Sydney 2023, after beating Complexity in the final. Given his team's rough start to this year, rain says that making the semi-finals would feel like that they're making progress. "But at the same time, we are still going to get frustrated and be tilted after the game if we don't get the trophy," he noted.

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A 2-0 win over paiN in your first match here in Melbourne. Give me your thoughts on this series.

Obviously, that was way closer than what we were hoping. It felt like we didn't play our best game today, even though we won 2-0. There are still a lot of things we can get better at. I don't know if it just comes down to jet lag and not feeling it. I think people weren't in the zone when we started, and we were a bit slow. Hopefully, it's just going to keep going better as the tournament progresses.

Were you surprised by how sharp they looked at certain points during the series, especially because they're playing with a coach? For example, on Anubis it took you a while to get things going, and then on Inferno, you had a rough start on the CT side.

I think dav1deuS was pretty on point today, getting a lot of important entries here and there. I think they played at a different pace than what they normally do. They played way faster and got into good scenarios, and we didn't really catch up on it fast enough, and they exploited it.

Can you walk me through the preparation for this event? You came into this one almost straight from Bucharest. Did you have time to have any specific preparation for this one, or are you just working with mostly what you had for Bucharest?

 No, we haven't practiced at all since Bucharest. We only had like two days at home, so there was no practice after the game against Complexity. So it's more about just being here individually and taking it from there. And we were playing paiN, who came here with a coach. So it was hard to prepare anything.

 In the pre-match interview, karrigan said that the team was taking the right steps, but that it was still too early to tell whether you already have it all figured out. If you had to analyze the team, what would you say are the biggest issues right now? What do you think you still have to work on?

In terms of me and my roles, I have switched around a lot, and I'm playing more passive and lurky roles now. So I need some time to get used to it as well. It's very hard to switch from the last ten years of playing aggressively. And with John [EliGE] coming in, I think it was the same as when Twistzz came into the team. It's about getting used to the chaos, because I think it gets very chaotic and he's used to a very different system. But I think he's starting to pick it up, like, to embrace the chaos and kind of just not give a fuck when there's so much chaos, you know? So I think it's going forward.

One of the main talking points from that loss to Falcons in Bucharest was that it was a very rough series for broky, especially in the final stages of Mirage. What is the team doing to make sure he can be the player he used to be in the past?

I think broky still has it in him to be one of the best AWPers. He has a very unique playstyle, and sometimes it can go bad and sometimes it can be good.  I think it's just about him finding the flow and getting more relaxed in the game. I can feel that he is a little bit on edge sometimes. So I think it's just about finding some calm and being the Latvian laser, you know?

Last time you were here in Australia, FaZe won the tournament and you were the MVP.  What sort of goals have you set for this tournament, considering the rough start to the year you've had, and what would be the minimum that would make you think, like, 'Okay, we're making progress here?'

I don't know. Basically, I'm coming to every tournament to win. I'm not playing for second place or for quarter-finals or anything. It's not a celebration. But as long as we make it out of groups and [get to the] semi-finals, around that, I think we will be content with it. But at the same time, we are still going to get frustrated and be tilted after the game if we don't get the trophy.