‘I want to be the in-game leader when I find a new destination’

We take a look back at FaZe’s game day and listen to Xizt talk about his ability to adapt in this competitive new environment. Below is the content of the interview with Xizt.

FaZe Clan had a rough IEM Sydney 2018 journey, losing to Renegades on day one, struggling against Grayhound to finally get to the playoffs by defeating Cloud9.

The last series was FaZe’s brightest match, with Xizt talking about the new roster, future plans, and Dust2’s return.

Obviously you’ve been with NiP for a long time, and now you’re playing for FaZe – what was the hardest thing about adapting to the new international squad?

To be honest, I think everything will be easy, from being in-game leader (IGL) for quite a while to being a regular player. I think the biggest problem is communication because we have to speak English and I always communicate in Swedish. It took a while to get used to, also, I had to replace Olof’s positions and it was difficult, it would take quite a while. Olof plays a lot of solo positions everywhere and he has to make a lot of decisions for himself, and I always play in the position with everyone, telling them what to do and playing against them. This was the biggest thing I had to adapt to, which was changing roles.

He mentioned that he used to be IGL, for a long time, I guess, the opportunity to join FaZe was something that happened at the last minute quite unexpectedly. Overall, is returning to the IGL position something you want to do in the future, or do you just want to be a player like you are now?

I think I want to be the in-game leader, when I find a new destination. Of course, this is only temporary. I think I can learn a lot from karrigan, which is good for me to leave this role for a while. The period in NiP was quite difficult for me, especially the last period, for the last 1-2 years I felt trapped. I can’t do the new things that I want to do. I think that’s good for me and good for NiP to start fresh.

You played the first tournament in Marseille and then came here, what was your overall feeling when you came to IEM Sydney?

We had a lot of trouble at Marseille with communication and things like that, especially in key situations, at the bottom of the map. When we tried to close the game, everyone became stressed, the ability to communicate and make decisions [khá tệ]. The same thing happened here, in the match against Renegades. That’s what the members are working hard on, how to communicate, to play together as a team. That’s what we’re focusing on right now.

The Australian teams have surprised many people, impressed with their competition results. What do you think about this? FaZe himself lost to Renegades, despite defeating Grayhound, the match was too close…

I mean Renegades are a good team, they’ve been around for a long time, I respect them a lot and Renegades deserved to be in the playoffs. I’m happy for them. As for the other Australian teams, no one knows how they play. It’s true that Australian teams surprise many players, they have good players. AWPer, Gratisfaction took everyone by surprise, the team performed well individually and had slow rounds on the T side, which made it difficult for us. But FaZe made good adjustments towards the end… and it was a good BO3.

Dust2 is back on the map pool, you’ve played this map once – what do you think about the return of Dust2 and the new patch?

I don’t think it’s too different from the old map, to be honest, there are still some new smoke or flash phases. I’ve always been a fan of Dust2, I think it’s a great map, lots of strategies for you to do. This also benefits FaZe, because we always ban Cobble. Having Dust2 will make it possible for the team to play all seven maps. This is the great advantage of the team.

To conclude the interview, FaZe played against Cloud9, won, and it seems that this is the easiest match right now. I think this is quite surprising, given that it’s Cloud9 and their size…

Yes, we lost to Cloud9 in Marseille but I think everyone has improved a lot since then. The members played really well on the T side, we need to improve our CT, especially in Mirage. But looking back, Cloud9 has a new player, FaZe also has a new member, me, it’s not like the previous Major finals. Cloud9 is still a strong team and we’re glad we were able to finish the game.

Source: HLTV