They defeated the titans to reach the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 championship, FaZe Clan is your new king! Taking down Natus Vincere, FaZe’s incredible journey ended with a totally deserved victory. Especially after listening to the FaZe Clan players who were desperate to finally win a major and finish the job that they couldn’t in 2018, you will understand why they are the believers, and how they could take down the GOAT.
This is FaZe Clan’s fourth win in four tournaments in 2022 so far. Have a look at the video we prepared for their achievement at the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, and then move on to their story with us.
FaZe Clan’s journey to the Major
The last successful tournament for FaZe Clan was in 2020, when they won the IEM XV New York Online: Europe against OG. Since then, the team was underperforming and their fans were getting desperate as the years went by. At the start of 2022, their luck turned around.
They finished first in their BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2022 group, earning the $27,500 prize. Following that, FaZe Clan scripted history when they won IEM Katowice, taking down G2 Esports 3-0 in the finals and earning a whopping $400,000 prize. Their successful streak continued during the ESL Pro League Season 15 when they defeated ENCE in the finals to earn another $190,000 and dominate the CS:GO scene.
After their success, FaZe Clan joined the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 European RMR A to qualify for the main event. Defeating Eternal Fire and Team Vitality, FaZe started out good, but their loss against BIG made them fall back to third place. Defeating MOUZ 2-0, they secured a pass to the Legends Stage of PGL Major Antwerp 2022.
Surviving the Legends Stage
FaZe Clan’s first opponent at the Major was ENCE which they defeated back in the ESL Pro League Season 15 finals. ENCE took down FaZe 16-8 on Mirage, sending them to the lower bracket. There, FaZe Clan faced Bad News Eagle who came from the Challengers Stage with a miracle run. BNE didn’t have a chance against them, and the game on Ancient ended 16-4 in favor of FaZe.
Using the boost, FaZe Clan moved on to defeat Cloud9’s new roster just as easily. A 16-8 victory on Nuke sent FaZe Clan to round four where they were one series away from making it to the knockout stage. Even though Copenhagen Flames stole one on Inferno 16-13, FaZe won Ancient 16-13 and Nuke 16-6 to advance to the next round.
Going through NIP and Team Spirit
The Champions Stage is a single-elimination bracket with best of three games, and FaZe Clan’s first rival was Ninjas in Pyjamas. With dev1ce on the bench, Ninjas still managed to make it here and create problems for the FaZe side. After FaZe Clan’s win on Nuke, NIP tied the series on Overpass. While you might have thought it would create pressure on FaZe, the opposite happened when they came back from 7-8 with a 9-0 second half and moved on to the semi-finals.
FaZe Clan’s opponent was Team Spirit, the Russian five was the last obstacle between FaZe and the grand finals of PGL Major. FaZe started strong, a 10-5 advantage on Mirage. They almost blew it when Spirit managed to take 13 rounds in total, but finally were able to pull through. Next map was Dust II.
One of the greatest games in recent times was played between these two teams on Dust II. FaZe started with 9-6 but Spirit managed to tie it. After three overtimes which equaled to an additional 18 rounds, FaZe finally got the upper hand and took Spirit down 2-0, moving on to the grand finals against Natus Vincere.
Grand final against Natus Vincere
Being affected by the conflicts in Ukraine, NAVI’s 2022 wasn’t perfect but here they were, in the grand finals of a major tournament once again. s1mple won his first Major in 2022, and he was definitely looking for more. FaZe had something to say about that. For the final series, FaZe banned Mirage, NAVI banned Vertigo. FaZe then picked Inferno and NAVI picked Nuke. After NAVI banned Overpass and FaZe Dust II, Ancient was left to be the decider for this amazing series.
Inferno once again went well for FaZe Clan side. After a 10-5 start on T side, they blew their lead in the second half and NAVI managed to tie the series. It wouldn’t take more than one overtime this time. broky’s clutch deny, which was followed by a 1v2 clutch from him, secured the map for his team and opened the doors of the championship for FaZe Clan.
It was NAVI’s castle Nuke now, but FaZe had also gathered significant victories there here recently. They started out great, especially rain having incredible numbers. After the first half, FaZe Clan was ahead 10-5 yet another time. The second half started 4-2 in favor of NAVI, but that meant FaZe Clan needed only four rounds. Winning all four of them in a row, FaZe Clan won the Major and reached what they were searching for all these years.
The most beautiful comment about their success came from karrigan, the man who was a part of the FaZe Clan roster which lost the ELEAGUE Major to Cloud9. Check out his comments about his comeback below:
Interesting stats and facts from FaZe’s championship
According to Esports Charts, two of FaZe Clan’s matches were one of the five most-watched games in PGL Major Antwerp 2022: FaZe vs Team Spirit in the semi-finals with 1,143,048 peak viewers, and FaZe vs NAVI grand finals with 2,096,557 peak viewers.
Considering HLTV’s Rating 2.0, FaZe Clan’s Norwegian rifler rain is the most successful player of this tournament with a 1.24 rating. In terms of K-D diff, broky joins the conversation with his +62, seven kills more than b1t, the second place. broky also has the highest K/D ratio on his team with 1.30, but he is behind m0NESY and degster. Another notable success from rain was how he attempted an opening kill 30.4% of the time and how he had a great success rate of 66.7%.
It was an amazing ride and as mentioned before, FaZe and their players totally deserved this absolution. If you get excited by their victory too, check out Luckbox to claim your 100% bonus, watch more CS:GO events like PGL Major live and place your bets on your favourite teams.
