FaZe Clan is one of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) teams participating in the BLAST Pro Series São Paulo, a tournament taking on March 22nd and 23rd at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium. The European team has several highlights in the competitive landscape and continues to make changes this season with Nikola “NiKo” as the new captain. The team has also signed Dauren “Adren” and coach Janko “YNk”. FaZe started the year by winning the title of ELEAGUE Invitational.
Strengths
The surprising change of FaZe Clan is the line-up.,In addition to NiKo and Adren, the team has stars Ladislav “GuardiaN”, Olof “olofmeister” and Håvard “rain”. These are players who could be in any other line-up in the world, as they have a lot of international experience and individual career titles.
FaZe pro players also always appear among the top 20 in the world, according to the ranking of the website HLTV. NiKo, for example, was the third best in 2018 while GuardiaN was ranked 11th.
Weaknesses
When they are together as a line-up, FaZe Clan players lack the winning chemistry. Another point that may be unfavorable to the team is the fact that NiKo is the new in-game leader. The Bosnian won that spot after Finn “Karrigan” left but still could not get the job done. With YNk as a new technician, perhaps this weak point can be solved together with NiKo.
Player spotlight, NiKo
Since being hired by FaZe, NiKo always stands out as a technical leader, which explains a lot the fact that the player has been ranked amongst the best players in the world since 2016. However, to become the best in the world, one needs to win titles which NiKo lacks and has been overshadowed by other big names of teams and players worldwide.
First game, first W, 30 bomb from NiKo: business as usual.
🎖️ FaZe Clan 16, ORDER 3 #FaZeUp pic.twitter.com/ILzqOtjg7x
— FaZe Clan (@FaZeClan) February 27, 2018
History in Brazil
FaZe Clan has previously competed in Brazil and won the competition on the soil. In 2018, the Europeans participated in the ESL One Belo Horizonte and were champions of the tournament.
The city of São Paulo will host, once again, an international Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) championship. A total of six teams will fight for a share of the $ 250,000 prize pool. The six thousand tickets for the BLAST Pro Series São Paulo sold out in less than nine hours. The event even made a waiting list available on the official website. The first day of the event (Friday) will have no public presence. On Saturday, the gates of the Ibirapuera Gym will be open from 11 am (from Brasília).
One day to go… #BLASTProSeries #SaoPaulo pic.twitter.com/sdjaKIFkGX
— BLAST Premier 💥 (@BLASTPremier) March 22, 2019
The BLAST Pro Series also features an exhibition match between the third-place team and an opposing team (from the fourth to the sixth position). It’s the so-called BLAST stand-off where the teams make five one-on-one duels on the Aim_map. The first player to get seven eliminations wins the match. Each match is played with a different weapon. The team with the highest number of eliminations will be declared the winner of the match.
