FaZe bench broky

The Latvian's five-and-a-half year stint on FaZe's starting roster has come to an end.

FaZe have announced that Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants has been benched from the starting roster. The move brings to an end broky's nearly six year stint on FaZe's starting lineup, which stretches back to September 2019.

The announcement comes amidst a poor start to the year for FaZe, during which time the only deep runs they have made came at PGL events amongst lesser fields. Notably, FaZe have missed out on the playoffs of IEM Katowice, IEM Melbourne and BLAST Open Lisbon.

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FaZe faced the significant challenge of replacing Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool in the most-recent player break, as the Estonian lurker had departed for Vitality. Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski was the man FaZe turned to as a replacement for their departing star, bringing the multi-time HLTV top 20 American star to Europe to aid his hunt for trophies.

Despite the inevitably of teething issues in integrating EliGE, as the 27-year-old was moving continents and not a like-for-like replacement for ropz in terms of roles, FaZe have underperformed with the American rifler on their lineup, showing little promise or improvement in results across his five-month tenure.

In an effort to remedy their current poor form, FaZe have opted to send AWPer broky to the bench. The Latvian was named the eighth-best player of last year in HLTV's top 20 list, but that was largely based on his form in the first half of the year. His performances waned across the back end of 2024 and that decline continued into 2025, with the 24-year-old only just breaking 1.00 event ratings across the majority of tournaments this year.

broky's benching brings to an end a significant stint on FaZe's starting lineup, which he joined in 2019 as a rifler. The Latvian soon took up the AWP role, and was a part of some of FaZe's most successful periods in CS, most notably winning PGL Major Antwerp and placing second at PGL Major Copenhagen and Perfect World Shanghai Major with the team.

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In total broky has won nine notable events with FaZe, his most successful period with the squad coming in 2022 when FaZe won PGL Major Antwerp, and did the Katowice-Cologne double. He also secured an Intel Grand Slam during his time with the team, and collected a number of individual accolades, including four HLTV top 20 appearances and three MVP awards.

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With this benching, FaZe are now:

Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen
Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski
David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský

Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski (coach)

Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants (benched)