rain on being benched: "There's a lot of s**t going towards karrigan, which is very unnecessary. It was not his choice"

rain appeared on the HLTV Confirmed podcast to discuss the details of his benching by FaZe.

There are precious few players that can boast of a near-10-year stint with a single team, but one of those players was Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard up until a few days ago, when the veteran rifler was benched by FaZe.

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FaZe announce rain benching

In the wake of the news of his removal from FaZe's starting lineup rain made an appearance on the HLTV Confirmed podcast, speaking with Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill and Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda about some of the details of his benching.

After kicking off the podcast with a trip down memory lane reminiscing on some of his history in FaZe, rain got into the details of his removal from the team.

The Norwegian told HLTV that he found out about the possibility of Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken's return after BLAST Open London, and admitted he was frustrated at the prospect of being benched.

"The first thought is I was pissed, because I knew this would probably mean that I would lose out on a Major.

"It's so close to the Major that nobody is going to make a change, and with the roster lock I'm stuck to FaZe. Depending on who I will join I'm, most likely, the rest of the year going to sit on the sideline and watch Counter-Strike. That was my first thought."

rain was quick to defend Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen, saying the amount of vitriol the IGL has received in the wake of his benching is "unnecessary" and the benching "was not his [karrigan's] choice."

"In the past and up until maybe a year ago, it was the players and the coach, with the influence of RobbaN as well, [deciding] who is gonna be on the roster and how the team wants to look. I know management also wants to be a little bit more hands on because results have not been very good, it's been a long time since a trophy."

Concluding the conversations about his benching, rain said that "a lot of teams are reaching out" since the announcement, and that he was having meetings with his not-agent "every day."

"Depending on what happens, how things are moving in the coming weeks, I have a guy that I'm working with and we are having meetings every day. He doesn't want to be called an agent, but he's helping me a lot and reaching out to teams.

"I don't see a lot of top teams I'll be able to join based on what I want to do, so I probably have to start somewhere lower and kinda work my way up, and hopefully qualify for the next Major."

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Community reacts: rain leaves FaZe

rain touched on many more topics during his hour-long appearance, including what went wrong with FaZe and Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski, his thoughts on what type of roles he might fill moving forward, and what it might be like for him to join MOUZ or Natus Vincere. Check out the full podcast episode to hear more from the Norwegian legend.