FaZe rain brushes off CS2 dynasty rumblings as team is still yet to hit their “peak”
ESLFaZe Clan has reached eight Grand Finals in a row, swiftly becoming the most dominant CS2 thus far. But as rain explained to Dexerto, the team is still just finding its footing, with the “peak” still far in the distance.
As FaZe Clan comes into ESL Pro League Season 19, they arrive in Malta with a jaw-dropping record of eight Grand Final appearances in a row, just coming off a trophy lift at IEM Chengdu. It’s their first trophy of 2024 and fourth CS2 trophy overall, marking them as the best team in the relatively new game.
Though with such an incredible streak, a period of near-dominance, the consistent performance comes with its drawbacks, particularly with how exhausting it is to go deep in every tournament.
“It’s been a very good streak, but the streak comes at some cost,” FaZe Clan’s Håvard “rain” Nygaard said. “You go to every final and it’s very little time to rest and reset for the next one. So it’s been a little bit tough on the mental health side.”
As rain outlined, in the lead-up to the Major, FaZe “barely had a day off”, going immediately from the Copenhagen Major straight to Chengdu.
“Two weeks before the Major, up until Chengdu it was like full crazy mode,” rain said. “So yeah, it’s been pretty hectic. Before [ESL Pro League], we had five days off, we tried to full reset and come into the tournament with a bit of a fresh mind.”
But despite the exhaustion, rain isn’t too worried about trying to make yet another Grand Finals in ESL Pro League, nor does he want to call this CS2 streak a dynasty just yet. As he argues, it’s still early days yet with many more competitions to win.
“No, not yet,” rain said of the dynasty talks online. “If we won every final then maybe, but at the moment not really.” So what other trophies would rain feel they need to cement this era as a dynasty? “I need at least IEM Cologne, or some bigger ones,” the veteran replied.
In fact, rain doesn’t believe this roster has even hit its ceiling just yet. “I don’t think this roster has peaked at all. We only had [frozen] for three, four, months, now. So I feel like this roster hasn’t peaked yet and it’s still a long way to go till we get to the peak.”