FaZe sleep off their hangover

7 hours, 5 maps. 18 clutches. But only 1 winner.

In the Battle of Cologne, all ten players had their moment, and none more so than the man in the hunt for the title of the greatest North American player of all time.

With a helping hand from the roaring LANXESS, at 13:14 on the fifth and final map of Nuke, Twistzz rushed off silo, onto main, and delivered one of the most impactful triple kills of all time.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

As Inferno began, and aizyesque mumbled about nade damage being ‘unskillful’, broky stumbled into a 4K that gave FaZe a 13:12 lead, one they converted. 1:0 FaZe.

On Overpass, though, NAVI stroke back. s1mple delivered another 25 frags — taking his tally to 50 already — but it was  Perfecto who delivered a sermon on why the Five-Seven is overpowered as well as a soul-crushing B hold at the death. 1:1.

On Ancient, FaZe slumped to a 12:3, and then a 15:4 lead. But this isn’t the FaZe of old, or a TACO story — they didn’t give up. They needed 11 rounds in a row, and they did it.

And yet, it was all for nought. NAVI finally got their act together to win in overtime.

But FaZe carried confidence from their comeback to the fourth map, Mirage. All four of FaZe’s fraggers ending the map with more than a 1.30 rating. FaZe do not have a s1mple. But together, they can halt the GOAT in his tracks.

And they did. Storming to a 16:9 win in the most convincing map win of the final. But even that win wasn’t easy.

See here as rain scratches another 1v3 clutch out of the history books for s1mple, he will be having IEM Katowice 2019 nightmares tonight.

But thank god rain stopped s1mple…

Best of fives get a lot of flack — which is weird, considering they’re the reason we didn’t have to suffer through a showmatch — but when the stars align, with two evenly matched teams as good as these two, how can you be a fan and argue against this?

The decider, though, was Nuke: The map NAVI won PGL Stockholm on. And the map FaZe wrestled that crown off of NAVI’s head six months later in Antwerp.

That win, however, had many an asterisk, as well as a Russian tank-sized Instagram post of an elephant in the room. This time round, there was no such thing.

Just 20 points apart on HLTV’s ranking, it all came down to a best of one on Nuke. And both sides delivered. The game ebbed and flowed, before finally we came to a 14:14 deadlock.

Enter Twistzz.

The crowd roared, SIIUUUUd, and clapped their ‘bam bams’ as Canada’s finest export since maple syrup stomped his way to the top of silo, flying onto the roof of main. electroNic, deaf, didn’t budge — and paid the price. sdy in main, too, seemed unaware as Twistzz faded his screen to black.

It was a play that would only work on LAN. But this is FaZe we’re talking about. They only work on LAN too.

And they didn’t let slip. The next round was a formality. NAVI and s1mple weren’t just deaf, they were mute. 14:14 became 15:14, and then 16:14.

FaZe had won the battle for the ages. They go into the player break as CS:GO’s best team as champions of IEM Katowice, the Major, and IEM Cologne.

In the Cathedral of Counter-Strike, CS:GO’s best ever international team finally had their