Another trophy for FaZe comes along with another MVP award by HLTV.org & Betway for Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard. The Norwegian finishes 2017 with two, matching the tally of his teammate Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač.

rain was the most valuable player in FaZe's victory at ECS

Following the winner's ceremony, we talked to rain about the hard-fought victory over mousesports, FaZe's map pool and more.

Give me your thoughts on the grand final, did you expect, going into the match, that it was going to be this hard playing against mousesports?

We knew it was going to be hard because they are improving lately and we know that they can be really good. We didn't expect it to be this hard, I think I've never been this drained after a final before. Even with the ones we have lost I've never been this drained. They played really good, it was really tight, we had a lot of close rounds that we gave away. But in the end, we managed to win at least.

Watching the game, mousesports, especially on Inferno I feel, they were pretty aggressive on their CT side, they played seemingly as they were the favorites, with no respect. Did that kind of catch you off guard, was it hard to deal with that?

Rounds in which they did aggressive stuff they caught us off guard, we weren't prepared, we were talking about something else and suddenly they were in our faces. We were caught off guard but we knew that they also did this when we practiced against them, on all maps. We knew that they had these setups, but we just didn't know when they were coming.

This series started with Nuke, you lost it in the end even though you had a strong comeback attempt. But it seems like Nuke and Cobblestone are the weakest maps in your map pool, how do you feel about that, what is the thinking about your map pool at the moment?

We are working on all seven maps, we haven't worked on Nuke that much lately because nobody plays it and we kind of focused on beating SK, and they don't even play Nuke. So it's not the main focus, our T side is horrendous, we won the pistol, 3-0, and the only other round we won was when karrigan aced in an eco. So not much to show from there. We just have to go back and work on our maps.

After winning this final, the last final of the year, SK wasn't here so it wasn't that valuable of course, what is the feeling like? Especially considering how hard you had to fight for the win?

It felt really good, it felt a lot better than winning both ELEAGUE and [ESL One] New York, because both were fairly easy. When you fight for something like this, you get more energy, you feel it more. SK not being here means we will not be number one and we won't be number one until we beat them, so I'm looking forward to 2018.

This is your second MVP of the year, and more importantly a good showing, your form has been going up, it wasa another great tournament for you. How do you feel as a CS player right now? A few years in the making, playing Major qualifiers back with the Norwegian teams and now being at the biggest stages. Can you go further from here?

I think I can go further, I came from a Norwegian scene that wasn't really there. So I've been playing with a lot of players and I've gained experience from a lot of players. I think playing with GuardiaN, olofmeister and NiKo, whenever I watched them I tried to learn new stuff, and they've been in the game a lot longer than me, especially olof and GuardiaN. I think I can just go up from here.

Anything you want to add to end the year and the interview?

I can say good game to mousesports, it was a really hard game, and merry Christmas and happy New Year to everyone.