FaZe made it through to the Esports World Cup playoffs with victories over BetBoom and Legacy, and will return to action in the playoffs on Thursday.
Ryan "Neityu" Aubry sat down to speak to HLTV about signing with FaZe after his initial loan, how it has been to play with the team these first months, and how they are improving over time with the help of the leadership from coach Niclas "enkay J" Krumhorn and in-game leader Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken.
The Frenchman also spoke about the hopes of making a deep run in the bracket, with the possibility of facing some of the lower-ranked teams early on. "We'll see the seeding as well if we play great teams or not," Neityu told HLTV before the playoff draft.
FaZe drew none other than Vitality in the first round of the playoffs, a perennial contender at any event, but the bees have had struggles of their own in Paris, losing to B8 in pool play before asserting themselves against Lynn Vision to advance to the knockout stage.
Alright, Neityu, congratulations on making it to the playoffs, and I suppose congratulations are also in order because you became a permanent FaZe player now. How does that feel?
It feels great. Like I said already, I felt like I was already in the team since the past months, because I've been playing since some time, and I knew already I would join. It was just a matter of contractual issues and stuff, and negotiations, but I already knew I was here, so I felt comfortable. And when the announcement was here, I was like, 'Finally. Finally it's announced.' But inside of me, I knew already I was there.
So the pressure wasn't on for the last few months, I suppose? Or how long have you known that you were in?
I think during the player break, I already knew, we already talked about it, that I was going to join the team. It was just negotiations and details and stuff. But yeah, I would say I got a bit relieved when there was the announcement. I was like, 'Finally, it's here.' But yeah, not much pressure, I would say.
Can you tell me about how it was to go from the first few months, where FaZe was in a very turbulent period? A lot of changes were happening, and there was a lot of uncertainty about the lineup. There was also a lot of pressure on the team, considering how big of a brand it is, and how much attention a team like FaZe garners. How was it from your side, to go through those first few months, until you finally found out that you've been approved?
I would say when I joined, I felt a bit of pressure, of course, because it's FaZe. There's a big name. There was also really decorated players, I would say, like frozen, Twistzz, and broky in the past as well. So I felt a bit of pressure playing in this big name, but I was also a stand-in, so I was like, 'Okay, I'm just going to try to be myself, have fun in the game, and if I play good, then most likely they will keep me, hopefully for me as well.' And I think for them, there was also probably more pressure for them, because in the past it didn't work well for them. They were ranked 40 in VRS. FaZe was not supposed to be that low, you know? It's a high prestige team, so it needs to be in the top.
For me, I was just like... I would say I was kind of chilling, you know? I was just trying to bring the vibes to the team, trying to do my best, and hopefully we'd do good. And when broky was there, we also placed like top three, four in some tournaments. The first tournament was good. The second, Atlanta, was a bit less good. And then after we played in Stake Ranked in Barcelona, it was also decent. We could have done a bit more, but it was okay.
And then after, when JBOEN entered the team, I think there was not much pressure. I think everyone just knew we just needed to rebuild the team. And when I joined and Jason joined, I think it was just a matter of practice, like we are doing now, and just playing a lot, trying to get back into the top, and qualify to the Major. And now I would say I think everyone is pretty fine.
You have pretty much beaten all the teams that are just below the top 10 level and throughout EWC, you've got the job done with that sort of competition. But from here it's probably going to get quite a bit tougher and so far the only top team that you guys have played was Spirit. A close loss there back at Bounty. How do you guys feel you match up against those teams, once you are able to go up against those a little bit more consistently?
Yeah, the match against Spirit was really close, like you said. I think, to be honest, we should have won it. I think it was a matter of just small details that, fortunately, like the time, we didn't have time to correct those things before. But I think there are some rounds that we trolled and it cost us the game, unfortunately.
Coming into playoffs, we're probably going to play against these teams again, like the top five, the really big teams. I think we're not scared. I think we're pretty confident. I think, in my opinion, personally, my feeling is that I have better play style, or I would say I play better against these type of teams, because I don't know, it's just I feel more comfortable. I think they're, I wouldn't say they're a bit more readable, but it's a play style that I will be more comfortable on, do more plays, or do the good plays.
Against teams like, I don't know, magic or whatever, team in top 20, top 30, it's like, they will go crazy. They know that they're not the favorites, so they will have less pressure, and they will play better than us in general, individually or whatever. My feeling is that we're confident playing against those [top] teams. And even though we don't have much practice, and JBOEN joined one month ago, I think we have really strong basics, and we are also improving every day. So we're just working hard, and it pays off for now.
What do you think has been behind that improvement, from the beginning? What has been behind those results lately?
I think our coach is doing a really great job right now. I think the game plans that he's preparing with also our analyst, and also Twistzz is doing a really good job as being IGL. I think we just have a really good environment in the team as well. The coaching staff is doing a great job, and we are working really hard every day right now. We had also a bootcamp recently, so that helps a lot as well.
I think everyone is also, when JBOEN joined the team, I think he was also really comfortable instantly. So we have good chemistry and people are all already integrated in the team. And also people are just stepping up. jcobbb has been playing really great recently. Everyone is just playing really good and it just feels good. And yeah, like I said, we have good chemistry. Everyone is just doing their job.
So far, the top four result at Bounty and of course the one at XSE would've been your best results so far. At EWC, what would be the goal for FaZe? Have you spoken about some sort of expectations for this tournament?
I think the main goal was to go to playoffs. We didn't set any type of goal, there's more of a general goal that we wanted to go back to the top and have the ranking to go to the Major, qualify to the Major. If we didn't go to playoffs, we'd be a bit disappointed, but it's not the end of the world.
But now that we're qualified, I guess we are more confident going far into the playoffs. It's also a long bracket, so I think there's going to be not less difficulty, but we have more chances to go far. We'll see the seeding as well if we play great teams or not. But I think we have more chances to go far, so I think everyone has high expectations right now to potentially go to the final and maybe win the tournament. We will see.
You have a bit of a longer break before that happens than most tournaments, six or seven days depending on which day you play. How are you going to spend that time?
That is crazy. Yeah. I think we are going to for sure review the games. We're going to have a lot of time, so we're going to review the games. We're going to also spend some good time, probably dinner or something with the team, try to, like I said, build more chemistry and review, and also we're going to practice, kind of default like any team will do, I'm sure.
So just practice, review, and also find a balance. So we're going to spend good time. There's a lot of things here, it's almost like the Olympic Games, and also have some friends here, so I'm going to try to find a balance, practice, review, and also, I don't know, spend some time, maybe look at other games. I don't know. We'll see.
Niclas 'enkay J' Krumhorn
FaZe
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Ryan 'Neityu' Aubry
Jakub 'jcobbb' Pietruszewski
Jason 'JBOEN' Boe Nielsen
Niclas 'enkay J' Krumhorn
Ryan 'Neityu' AubryPast 3 months
Lynn Vision
Zhe 'Westmelon' Niu
Sike 'z4KR' Zhang
Lizhi 'Starry' Ye
Junjie 'EmiliaQAQ' Tang
Qihao 'C4LLM3SU3' Su
Yifei 'GUM' Dai
Russel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenPast 3 months
B8
Alexey 'alex666' Yarmoshchuk
Andrii 'npl' Kukharskyi
Artem 'kensizor' Kapran
Dmytro 'esenthial' Tsvir
Danylo 's1zzi' Vinnyk
Ivan 'maddened' Iordanidi
Vitality
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
William 'mezii' Merriman
Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam
Legacy
Andrei 'arT' Piovezan
Eduardo 'dumau' Wolkmer
Bruno 'latto' Rebelatto
Vinicius 'n1ssim' Pereira
Santino 'try' Rigal
Alan 'adrrr' Riveros
BetBoom
Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov
Aleksandr 'zorte' Zagodyrenko
Pavel 'S1ren' Ogloblin
Daniil 'd1Ledez' Kustov
Kirill 'Magnojez' Rodnov
Artem 'Fierce' Ivanov