Amongst the rumors and speculations of roster shuffles post-major, FaZe is likely to make changes. To fix unknown problems, FaZe feel they need the services of Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer and Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács. This could cause more problems than it might fix, at least on paper.
I’ll look through some reasons as to why they might want to change, and some reasoning behind it.
It came as a surprise to many that FaZe went out 0-3 in the swiss stage losing to BIG, mousesports, and FlipSid3. A loss to mousesports isn’t far fetched, but the gap in skill alone between themselves and the other two should be enough to win them a match easily. Whether it be NiKo’s curse in majors or the massive under-performance of Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey, FaZe underperformed as a whole.
Photo by: hltv.org
Now, to say that FaZe should make changes after a bad major isn’t necessarily the right thing. Out of the last 6 tournaments they have made the finals 4 times. Going out Top 4 at Cologne and last at the major. The positives heavily outweigh the negatives in that equation. One bad tournament shouldn’t end a team, unless everybody was ready to explode at each other.
All-in-all, FaZe shouldn’t change rosters with the reasoning being a bad major. Not every Tier 1 team is going to consistently be winning every match or making Top 4 every tournament.
In 2017, the only team who has made Top 4 every tournament is Astralis, not even SK Gaming. SK didn’t change after Katowice or Starladder. FaZe could very well win Malmö in a month, but maybe we’ll never know with this roster.
Photo by: hltv.org
One reason may never be seen publicly, conflicting personalities. Liking everyone on your team is hard, and nobody should be expected to do so. One thing that can back this up is the fact that Nikola “NiKo” Kovač has shown to be quite an angry player when he was on mousesports.
The problem with this is that FaZe would be out of their minds to replace NiKo, so they’d have to find someone to replace kioShiMa or Aleksi “allu” Jalli.
Some of the players might not be much of a fan of how Finn “Karrigan” Anderson leads the team. This may actually be one of the more plausible reasons. Karrigan was replaced on Astralis due to the players not trusting him anymore.
If a player or the team don’t trust the IGL, there’s a huge issue.
Allu isn’t known for his consistency, hence the meme between GOD allu and BOT allu. One game he’s a BOT, another he’s a GOD. For an AWPer, this is an issue. For such an important position you want someone who is reliable.
GuardiaN is similarly not consistent, much like allu. He’ll show up one game but be completely out of it the next. A good thing with FaZe is that everyone can AWP, so you can always switch out the gun. But, unless Karrigan uses it, it’s a waste of the stars.
Photo by: hltv.org
KioShiMa had a rather disappointing major performance. Having a 0.61 HLTV rating, he performed the worst on the team throughout three maps. The problem with this is that kioShiMa is one of the most consistent players on the team aside from this tournament.
He may not get 30 kills every map, but he does stick around the middle of the pack and is a huge clutch player. Of course, his direct replacement being olofmeister would upgrade essentially the same traits. But, who knows if olof will perform well in FaZe? He’s no longer one of the best players in the world. You can’t rely on him keeping his form between teams like NiKo did.
Taking everything in to account, and especially looking at the 3rd reason, there’s no pros to picking up GuardiaN and olofmeister. They’re essentially the same players from other countries and different names. The move makes no sense. And, unless there are some serious personality conflicts, there is no real reason to change.
Featured image via ESL Gaming.
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