Aurora capitalize on dismal FaZe offense to march on at EWC

FaZe tallied just two rounds on the offense across the last two maps of the series to end EWC with a whimper.

Aurora have eliminated FaZe from Esports World Cup in emphatic fashion, recovering from a blowout on Inferno (6-13) by dominating Mirage (13-3) and Overpass (13-7) to advance to the quarter-finals.

Date	Matches
Esports World Cup 2025
22/08/2025	HEROIC 16:30 Aurora	Match

It was a revenge game for Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli's men, who were eliminated from IEM Cologne by FaZe after a disastrous 1-13 loss on Mirage. T side issues on that map have since become the norm for the Turks, with their last four outings seeing them win a combined three rounds in a regulation and drop an 11-1 lead to The MongolZ.

Those issues didn't have a chance to rear their head in this series as Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker and Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş powered Aurora to a masterclass defense on Mirage and FaZe fell to a force-buy in the second half after winning the pistol.

Offensive issues were instead the highlight for FaZe, who dominated Inferno thanks to an impenetrable defense from Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard and Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski, but mustered just two T rounds on Mirage and none on Overpass, where they lost eight straight to be eliminated from EWC.

A blind, double opener from Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants wasn't enough to stop Aurora from securing the first pistol and conversion on Inferno, but the wheels fell off the bus from there.

FaZe came well-prepared for Aurora's defaults and executes, with the Turks left looking the fool as they repeatedly ran into an immovable A defense and excellent counter-setups from EliGE (2.57 CT rating, +16.04% Round Swing) and rain (1.81 CT rating, +6.48% Round Swing).

MAJ3R's few attempts to pivot toward B were shut down by Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský in Banana, but the game was largely won by FaZe's A pairing as they led the charge in a 10-round spree before closing out shortly into the second half.

The script was flipped on Mirage as FaZe were treated to a 2-10 half of their own after getting dominated by woxic early doors.

The Turkish sniper downed two and got the defuse in the first pistol, enabling a second-round AWP buy that annihilated FaZe's early attacks to the tune of five straight multi-kill rounds and a 12-1 K-D before XANTARES stepped up with a few multi-frag rounds and a clutch of his own en route to a dominant 13-3 finish.

Aurora carried momentum into Overpass for a 3-0 start before FaZe took the first two gun rounds, but disconnected, sloppy play from frozen and broky in a 2v1 handed Aurora a lifeline and allowed the Turks to convert a half-buy. Even with that boon, Aurora only managed five rounds by the break, with FaZe coming alive on the defense and ending the half on a high after a spectacular quad-kill spraydown by EliGE.

That high came crashing down after FaZe hit a wall after the side swap, unable to find a way past XANTARES on A or break through a formidable Monster-Short defense from Samet "⁠jottAAA⁠" Köklü and Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın. The latter set his team on match point with a quad kill and Aurora wasted no time in converting the win from there, sending FaZe packing from Saudi Arabia.

More highlights from Aurora vs. FaZe:

• rain shuts down Aurora half-buy with 4k from Pit

• Aurora can't break past rain's iron-fist hold of A

• Wicadia aces against FaZe's Deagles

• woxic fends off Apartments pop with AWP 3k

• woxic combat AWPs around Empty Pillar for 3k

• XANTARES downs three to keep FaZe on a single round

• Aurora hit double digits as Wicadia bags 3k to pull back 3v5

• FaZe fumble 2v1 to Wicadia

• broky's saved AWP shuts down Aurora's quick B hit

• Wicadia decimates FaZe with quad kill