FaZe Roster Shuffle – Karrigan Out

December 24, 2018 11:08 am By: Steven Burnley

It’s been a long time coming but it finally came, karrigan has been removed from FaZe. He stopped calling for the team in after ESL One New York in late September, following a string of tournament losses starting in August of this year. It’s been obvious that he was on his way out since then, and it’s finally official. This isn’t the first time a karrigan lead team has lost faith in him. His tenure on Astralis ended in a similar way, with him being moved to the bench.

This move raises a lot of questions for FaZe. Is NiKo going to be their IGL moving forward? Will Rain get out of his slump? Is there any insight to be gleaned from the last three months of FaZe’s results?

If I were the GM of FaZe, I would not want Niko to be calling. He’s one of the most talented players in CS:GO right now, and has been the key to FaZe’s success since he was added to the lineup. But I don’t think he’s a very good IGL. He called on Mousesports, so it’s not like he has no experience doing it, but I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the team right now. If they were smart, they’d find a new IGL who can alleviate the pressure from NiKo and bring him to his highest level, which FaZe will need if they want to compete with Astralis.

The biggest question mark for FaZe this year was rain. He had a rough year by his standards, and he frequently looked lost on the server. Personally, I’d put that on the chaotic leadership that the team suffered through in the back half of the year, and I think rain could still be an asset on this team.

However, I don’t know if that can happen while NiKo is in game leading. Rain really seemed to flourish under Karrigan’s leadership, at least in 2017. And while karrigan does keep things loose, I would imagine that things are even looser under NiKo’s gameplan. Rain didn’t break out as a superstar on G2, in those mix lineups. He came into his own once FaZe added a real IGL, who helped him refine his game.

If FaZe continue to have NiKo IGL, I wouldn’t be surprised if rain continues to freefall. And if that does happen, he’s going to be an attractive piece to be bought out. If I had to put money on it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on Cloud9 in the next six months.

A big problem for me in evaluating this move is that none of FaZe’s recent results matter. They openly admitted that they had minimal practice headed into BLAST Pro Lisbon, and clearly weren’t trying very hard. Now, this isn’t all that surprising, seeing as how their in game leader situation has been in flux for a couple months, and they obviously knew roster changes were coming. But it makes this roster hard to evaluate.

FaZe had a really weird second half of 2018. They were losing faith in karrigan, and their performance was all over the place. They won ESL One Belo Horizonte, and then went on to take 8th at four straight tournaments before moving NiKo to IGL. Whether an IGL change will be enough to bring this roster back into contention is a big question and is something that’s likely hanging over the heads of all four remaining players headed into 2019.

But what else can FaZe do? They have clearly shown a willingness to spend money, having participated in some of the highest buyouts in the history of the game. So presumably, no moves are off the table. The first thing they need to sort out, however, is their IGL situation.

IGL

There honestly aren’t a lot of immediate standouts at this spot for FaZe. They could keep rolling with NiKo, which wouldn’t surprise me. If they did, I would expect this team to look a lot like the early G2 mix teams and play looser. An additional roster change or two wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t know how well Guardian and rain would perform in a NiKo led FaZe.

I could see a world where Cloud9 and FaZe swap karrigan and Golden. Maybe Ex6TenZ? Tarik? The talent pool is relatively thin right now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if FaZe rode it out through the Major with NiKo calling, and then reevaluated.

AWPer

I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Guardian removed from the team eventually. He had a bad 2018, and he’s getting old. Teams running without an AWPer is becoming more common, so they may just replace him with another all-star rifler. Having someone who can neutralize Device is exceedingly important, what with Astralis being the best team in the world but having an AWPer isn’t a necessity. Worst case scenario you give NiKo the AWP, which will be passable in most cases.

FaZe is an intriguing team. Their roster is in a malleable place right now, and they have a lot of nice assets. There are a fair number of moves they could make to reshape the team and push them back into contention in 2019. There isn’t a lot that would surprise me from this team, as they’re one of the better run and better funded orgs in the scene.