Think of the World Titles of Esports, the biggest, most prestigious events: League of Legends Worlds, The International, Blizzcon, EVO, and the CS:GO Majors. There is something special and unique about these events that make them naturally stand out above the rest of the tournament calendar year. This manifests in the mental element of the competition. Unless a player or team is miles ahead of the rest in terms of their understanding or skill of the game, the mentality of the players plays a huge role in their ability to win. For FaZe, this could be the factor that could give them a chance of winning the FACEIT Major London.

Ever since August 20th, 2017, the weight of the world has been on FaZe’s shoulders. The reason is because of the lineup. They made two changes in the team and the resulting roster was: Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen, Havard ‘rain’ Nygaard, Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac, Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovacs, and Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer. It was the ultimate super team. A team that looked so ludicrous that no fantasy site would ever let you create a team of this caliber.

It felt like the endgame of what FaZe was building up to ever since they entered CS:GO. They had slowly acquired better and better players over time. When Astralis let go of karrigan, they quickly snatched him up. They then paid Mouz to get NiKo and once the team became one of the best in the world, they were able to parlay that into getting two more superstars in GuardiaN and olofmeister.

Now there were some caveats to this. Both GuardiaN and olofmeister weren’t at peak performance when coming into the lineup. GuardiaN was a top AWPer, but he wasn’t’ close to what he was back from late 2015-early 2016 where I thought he was the best player in the world. Olofmeister had recovered from his injuries in 2016, but was never quite the same superstar again.

For the team to work, Karrigan was going to have to figure out a system that enabled all of them to work. To his credit he did as he got the team rolling by their second event at ESL New York 2017 where they dominated the competition to the point where it felt like they were going to break the game. From then to now, these are the total top placings they’ve accumulated with this five man lineup:

2nd place ELeague Boston Major

1st: ESL New York, ELeague Premier 2017, ECS Season 4

2nd: IEM Oakland 2017, ESL Proleague Season 6 Finals, IEM World Championship[

3rd: Blast

Top Four: V4 Future Sports, Starladder i-League Season 4

During the period where they had Richard ‘Xizt’ Landstrom and Jorgen ‘cromen’ Robertsen as standins, they also had:

1st: IEM Sydney, ESL Belo Horizonte

Top 4: ESL Proleague Season 7 Finals, ECS Season 5 Finals, ESL One Cologne 2018

Regardless of whether you include the achievements of the stand-in period, the results are absolutely amazing in an objective sense. They’d be right up there among the top teams to play the game.

However the expectations of this team are far heavier and in a relative sense it feels like a disappointment. This is a team that could have broken all of the records. Could have won nearly every event they attended, could have smashed the CS:GO world into splinters. Some of these losses made sense. SK had a favorable matchup against FaZe and many predicted them to be the best team going into 2018. Astralis are the best team of 2018.

However the ones that people remember do not. At IEM Oakland FaZe lost to NiP magic in a bo5 series loss. At ELeague Major Boston they lost to Cloud9 in an epic finals. At IEM World Championship, Fnatic were able to get to the fifth map whereupon Robin ‘flusha’ Ronnquist took a time machine back to when he was one of the best players in the world and dashed FaZe’s dreams of winning the title on train. At Starladder i-League Season 4 they lost to Na`Vi back when they were only being carried by Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev. V4 was a disappointing loss to Virtus.Pro, though it was a smaller event so it doesn’t quite stick in the mind like the others.

The more recent losses have had them lose to BIG Clan at ESL One Cologne, bombing out of ELeague Premier 2018, and losing in the ro8 to Mouz at DreamHack Stockholm. The BIG loss stings as BIG were the clear underdog and FaZe weren’t prepared for their unique utility heavy double AWP style. The ELeague Premier loss is forgivable as olofmeister had just come back. The Mouz loss at DreamHack Stockholm was less so, but when I look at the map veto, I suspect that they were trying to test out their map pool one more time before going in the Major. While that is not an excuse, it is an important thing to consider as I don’t think FaZe will pick Train over Mirage as a third deciding map against anyone at the Major.

When I look at all of the losses, it’s hard to point to an obvious common thread beyond mentally crumbling under the pressure. Beyond that, the losses and reasons for them are widespread. Some point to the T-side calling, and while karrigan has had issues with falling under the pressure in the past, but it doesn’t explain away the individual performances of the various players. GuardiaN is almost always fantastic except when they played against Na`Vi at Starladder. NiKo is usually an incredible superstar, except for his loss at the Major. You can point to multiple instances of inconsistent performances in these moments, but there is no one theory that can explain what the fundamental issue with FaZe is. The only thread I see is that in high pressure situations as massive favorites, FaZe crumble under the pressure.

It makes sense as people often cite Counter-Strike as a confidence game. A game where confidence can allow players to make their short or make the call or make the play that wins the team the round or series. In the case of FaZe this is doubly important as they have built the entire roster around the idea of a loss individual skill based team. The team built their system around the idea of enabling their players so when the individuals fail and they are forced to revert to a set tactic or an improvised one, they will naturally be worse than a team who specializes in that area like say Astralis.

What defines confidence or what affects it is a tricky thing. However there are generally two sources of mental pressure. There is the internalized pressure we get from the expectations we have of ourselves. Then there is the social pressure we get from expectations that are thrust upon us. In the case of FaZe, they have some of the most pressure I’ve seen from the community because of the legendary names they have on their lineup.

It becomes even worse in high pressure matches where they are supposed to win. The reason is because they have more to lose. In psychology and decision theory there is an idea of loss aversion. This refers to people’s tendencies to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains.

In the case of FaZe they have far more to lose as they have incredibly high expectations for themselves to win every event they go to. Anything less than that they consider a failure. This is the level they are operating at and this might be the key to their salvation.

Consider all of the teams that have beat FaZe as underdogs: NiP, Fnatic, Na`Vi, BIG, and Cloud9. All of them were on the reverse end of that equation where because they were the underdog against FaZe, they had nothing to lose. They could play their game without any outward pressure because they realized that the community expected them to lose. This creates a powerful environment as it calms the mind, allows people to play their game without worry, and builds confidence.

That is FaZe’s salvation at the FACEIT Major as they will be the underdogs going in. Astralis are the heavy favorites to win the entire thing as they have been the most dominant team in modern CS:GO. We’ve already seen this in affect with the Xizt lineup where FaZe were able to pull out a miraculous 3-0 victory against Astralis at IEM Sydney. As Xizt put it in his interview with Rivalry,

“So yeah, we were just really comfortable. We kept reminding each other, the pressure is on Astralis, it’s not on us. I think that helped a lot.”

Mentality alone wasn’t the reason as to why FaZe won that match. Don’t get carried away in thinking that confidence and a lack of pressure were the key reasons as to why FaZe won. Rather they were the final factor that barely tipped it into FaZe’s favor. If FaZe’s calling or individual skill slacked then, the mental factor wouldn’t have mattered at all.

When it comes to the Majors, good examples of this are the last two Major winners: Cloud9 and Gambit. Cloud9 were dark horses, while Gambit were underdogs. Both teams pulled off a miraculous run that defied all logic. Cloud9 went 0-2 in the Legends stages and rallied back to win the entire thing. The finals against FaZe were an insane peak level that they never had before or since. In the case of Gambit, they did something similar as they shocked the world by beating Astrails and then barely clutched it out against Immortals in the PGL Krakow Finals.

So going into this Major has a completely different feeling from the last that FaZe attended. At ELeague Boston Major, FaZe were the favorite and only lost at the very end. This time they go in as underdogs as Astralis are the clear best team in the world. This could potentially alleviate the pressure from their shoulders. On top of that, NiKo is arguably playing at his career best at the moment, so if FaZe make it to the finals, I have no doubt that NiKo will not falter a second time.

So there is a chance here for FaZe to pull off the miraculous feat that they did at IEM Sydney against Astralis. It isn’t easily repeatable, but at least the atmosphere is the same. Should they get into the finals against Astralis, that mentality could come into play. At the same time you have NiKo playing a level above almost every other player in the world and there are chances to be had. After all, Astralis are unlike Fnatic of 2015 or LG/SK in their various iterations. This isn’t a team that becomes even stronger when under the pressure. There is a possibility that they can crack. So while the underdog mentality isn’t a blueprint to success, it does give FaZe a shot. And that could make all the difference.

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