FaZe have found talent; now they need execution

This morning, after over an hour of technical delays, FaZe kicked off the debut of their post-broky era.

FaZe have flown to China in hopes of showing the beginning of something here. After karrigan left for Falcons, many presumed FaZe dead. In a way, they were right. The era of superstar-studded rosters and buyouts has ended, and an era of prodigy building is here.

Still, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just would’ve helped if they won their opening game.

FaZe got semi-dogwalked on Anubis against TYLOO. In the first half, the Chinese team executed onto an empty bombsite at least 4 or 5 times. They alternated between quick-paced site hits that caught FaZe off guard and fakes that played on their fear of TYLOO’s aggression.

The T-side wasn’t much better, echoing narratives from Twistzz's poor stint IGLing with Liquid.

FaZe hit 8 rounds on the T-side, and then failed to win another, losing 13-8. They even had TYLOO on the ropes, but Mercury hit a nasty deagle clip to shut them down. JBOEN tried to recover that round, but it was far too late.

Which does transition us nicely into talking about JBOEN.

The newest member of FaZe was the only positive in this game, literally. He was the only player to go positive with 17 kills and 12 deaths; every other member failed to show up. He was hitting quick AWP shots and looked confident in clutches. It was a dream debut for him individually, and FaZe seem to have actually found themselves a star.

He’s not perfect yet, though.

There was a round where FaZe got a good post-plant position on B and JBOEN decided to go aggressive into Cave. He still hit his shot, which is a positive, but was then traded out instantly. FaZe went on to lose that round.

It’s hard to tell without comms whether that was entirely his mistake, but it cost FaZe dearly.

Still, it answers a big question: JBOEN can be the AWPer this FaZe team needs.

Unfortunately, the questions over jcobbb’s fragging, Twistzz’s IGLing, and Frozen’s desire to even be there are still unanswered. There will need to be more change for this team to stop losing to TYLOO and become a contender.

FaZe have now found talent they didn’t have before. Will they actually be able to use it, or was Twistzz's failure at Liquid a sign of things to come for FaZe?