FaZe Clan crowned IEM Katowice 2022 Champions with a 3-0 rout of G2

FaZe Clan came out victorious against G2 in a marathon of a Grand Final at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2022. 

FaZe lifted the IEM Katowice trophy after sweeping G2 3-0 in the best-of-five grand final, a cathartic moment for karrigan, who won his first title since returning to FaZe in February 2021.

The grand finals stage saw two of the most skilled teams in the world go toe-to-toe. G2 had its full lineup aside from head coach Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam, while FaZe played with Justin 'jks' Savage instead of Håvard 'rain' Nygaard, who couldn’t play because he also tested positive for COVID-19.

STORY OF THE FINAL

The first map of the series, Inferno, was in G2’s hands. They had an 11-2 advantage in the first half and several map points in the second half to close out the game, but FaZe fought back and took it to overtime after Robin 'ropz' Kool pulled a fantastic ace in the 30th round to keep his team alive. On overtime, it was all FaZe. They took advantage of the momentum and closed it up 19-15.

FaZe dominated the first half of Mirage and could have secured the map way early, but it was G2’s time to give it all and avoid the defeat, taking it to overtime. 

It was a tense map as it went to fifth overtime and G2 had their chance to tie the series, especially because Nemanja 'huNter' Kovač was on fire. He dropped 57 kills and played much better than his cousin Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač, the team’s superstar.

G2 had huNter, but FaZe had Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken and jks. Both of them played a key role in FaZe’s win and it was the latter who nailed the final nail on G2’s coffin as he beat Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov and Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen in a one-vs-two clutch on the B bombsite to close out the map 31-27 in favor of FaZe.

Many fans across the world thought G2 would give up after the effort on Mirage, but huNter and company kept their heads up high in Dust II despite the disadvantage. The map was decided by the smallest details once again, but FaZe was able to close it out in regulation this time, winning it by 16-14.

THE WINNING MOMENT

FaZe’s captain Finn 'karrigan' Andersen was left emotional after the victory. The veteran had been in two IEM Katowice grand finals before, but couldn’t bring the title home.

I rewatched the 2018 IEM Katowice final again yesterday and told myself it’s not going to happen again.

karrigan also added that "this victory is the best ever, definitely the best ever, with this crowd, in this shitty situation we have been in, winning 3-0, 2-0, 2-0 in the playoffs with a stand-in is incredible."

With this defeat, G2 keep their grand finals curse as the organization that hasn’t won a tier-one championship in CS: GO since DreamHack Masters Malmö in 2017. 

FaZe, on the other hand, has won its third big Counter-Strike tournament with a stand-in and showed the world that they’re here to contend for titles in 2022.