The legacy of karrigan: the sublime and the ridiculous

Some greatness is instant. Some people come into the scene with their first event being the highest rated event of all time, naming no names. Some wine tastes great straight out the bottle. Some of it, though, keeps getting better and better with time.

Who’s greater; the man who had it all from birth, or the man who had to work his huevos off to get it?

In karrigan, you have the case study of a man who got knocked down and got back up more times than the Undertaker, and seemed to get stronger every time. Kinda like the Undertaker.

He has a trophy cabinet worth envying, a history of improving teams and players, a career of ridiculous highs that don’t seem to ever stop coming, and a legacy and reputation that is practically unmatched in Counter-Strike.

So why does it feel like he could have had more?

We’ll start in Denmark, where karrigan was a typical nerdy comput- alright, we’ll skip that bit and go straight to Astralis.

Always the bridemaid, never the bride. karrigan was always a great leader, and his level of calling was evident already on this team; but while we think of karrigan now as the kind of guy who is more comfortable on the stage than off it, back then Astralis had a bit of a conversion problem when it came to top 8s.

His time on Astralis is decorated with a litany of 2nds, 3rds, and 7-8ths, which leaves a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth when remembering his time there, especially when you remember that gla1ve replaced him and took home more silver than Judas Iscariot with most of the same team.

He did pick up some trophies back when they were TSM - Counter Pit League, PGL Season 1 for example - but nothing worth writing home about. Beating VP in the final in the PGL Season 1 was a great result, but there wasn’t much else.

Fortunately, he won a hell of a lot more on FaZe.

They gave karrigan an absolute superteam to work with, and he delivered. With an asterisk. The not converting thing from Astralis followed him there, which is a bit of a worry, but FaZe did still collect an IEM Sydney, ESL One Belo Horizonte, ESL One New York, EPICENTER, ELEAGUE among a few others. That’s a great haul, a truly great haul. Except it’s missing some notable tournaments.

Namely, a Major, a Cologne and a Katowice. FaZe lost two finals in Boston and Katowice they absolutely should not have lost to Cloud9 and a floundering fnatic carried by a legacy-defining game from flusha, and they never even made a final in Cologne.

If karrigan’s career ended here, he would most certainly not have the reputation he has. This was how karrigan was forged; close, but not close enough. Down, but not out. He was constantly derided for a controversial call in the Major final, and it haunted him and his reputation. karrigan was at his lowest point - trophies, but none of the big ones, was apparently not good enough.

Not just for FaZe, but for anyone but Team EnVy?

We don’t want to be mean. We really don’t. But Team EnVy?

We’ll breeze over that and go straight to MOUZ, where, unsurprisingly, he was still great. The EnVy thing was like a fever dream when you saw he was still an elite leader on MOUZ, and he even won Pro League with ropz as his MVP.

Foreshadowing.

With FaZe falling apart without him, and NiKo leaving for more familial pastures at G2, this left a space open for karrigan to rejoin FaZe.

This is where karrigan has made his case for the best ever, and not just one of the great ones.

As if to stick it to NiKo, who was largely credited (fairly or not) for ousting him after the Boston Major debacle, karrigan decided he was going to actually win everything this time. It took a little while, though - the cursed coldzera roster was, as the adjective suggests, not winning anything.

Fortunately, they brought in karrigan’s former teacher’s pet, ropz - and he was instrumental in karrigan’s first big win on his return to FaZe. He wasn’t the MVP this time around, because broky was absolutely extraordinary in Katowice back in 2022, but he did have one of the rounds of the year to take Inferno to overtime in the grand final.

Against NiKo.

With FaZe winning.

Poetic.

ropz did go on to grab an MVP at Pro League again as FaZe won it at a canter, and then the Antwerp Major came along. FaZe were the big favourites - again - with karrigan at the helm - again. karrigan needed to exercise the demons at the Major to really put himself in the debate as the GOAT IGL, and… well, this time he did.

The semi-final against Spirit was one of the best games we’ve ever seen, and honestly, as soon as this is uploaded we might go watch it again. Put the popcorn on, Pedro, we’ve got a game to watch.

rain, this time, was unbelievably good in the final. But more importantly, karrigan had the star on his chest. His legacy was beginning to take shape; his legacy as a winner, and not a nearly man, at least.

There was also the small matter of the Grand Slam he won, as he turned FaZe into a winning machine. They had four players capable of carrying any game, with Twistzz putting in a clinic in the IEM Cologne classic over NAVI, and karrigan had proof that he was not the problem in that FaZe superteam.

Not to point fingers, but olofmeister has won Majors, rain and karrigan won Majors…

The question is, though, when you think of karrigan, do you remember the failures that made the man, or the man the failures made?

You can’t just talk about karrigan’s successes and crown him the greatest. You can’t just ignore that he failed to win on Astralis or FaZe the first time. You can use it as an argument as to why he’s so great - his ability to create gold (or silver) from straw, or his ability to get up from being knocked down, are incredible assets for a leader - but you can’t just gloss over it.

But the fact that he won a Major and a Grand Slam without a ZywOo, s1mple, donk, or disco_doplan makes him at least a contender. He’s won an obscene amount of trophies, created multiple very good teams and improved nearly every player he’s played with. He’s, objectively, a world class IGL and at the very least one of the best ever.

So what more could he do to cement his legacy?

His time on FaZe has been a rollercoaster, and 2025 has largely been the part where it goes down for overnight maintenance.

That’s not entirely fair, but rollercoasters don’t really have prolonged plateaus, for obvious reasons. FaZe had some relative highs, but no wins, no grand finals, nothing that makes FaZe, FaZe.

karrigan has never been a great in-game player, but he would have moments of fleeting competence. Those moments were becoming further and further apart, and his general level hit a sharp decline too. FaZe weren’t the same beast, karrigan was falling off individually, and with rain’s controversial departure confirmed and all the drama around that, it felt like perhaps karrigan’s career would go out with a whimper.

They were on the brink of immediate elimination from the Major in Budapest, with new kid on the block jcobbb not really showing up at all and broky a shadow of his former self. karrigan’s legacy was set, but this was going to be a sad, sad ending.

Until it wasn’t.

FaZe were literally milliseconds from going out against RED Canids, before mounting a massive comeback. Not massive in the one-game sense, but in the tournament sense. FaZe came from stage three, roared through stage two, and snuck through stage three to put themselves, incredibly, in the playoffs.

FaZe. In playoffs. Anything could happen.

jcobbb had found some form. There were signs of life from broky. karrigan was calling like a genius again. FaZe were back. This was already another big success for karrigan’s legacy. When Sir Alex Ferguson won his final Premier League season with probably his worst Man United squad, it simply sealed his legacy as their greatest manager of all time. karrigan now had a real shot at doing the same thing.

They beat MOUZ up as they so often have throughout the years, and ground out a reverse sweep win over NAVI to make it to the final. They even won map one.

You all know how it ended by now, and it’s gutting for our hero. A Major win with this team, in these circumstances, probably would have left no argument for anyone else to be the greatest ever. His legacy would have been undeniable.

And yet, somehow, the loss doesn’t diminish that. Somehow this feels more impressive than the Major he won. This team was down and out, and karrigan himself looked more washed up then Call of Duty. He didn’t have rain. He didn’t have ropz. He didn’t have NiKo, or GuardiaN, or olofmeister. He had an inexperienced jcobbb, an out-of-form broky, and two genuinely great but not top 5 players (though Twistzz might have an argument in the second half of the year) and found himself competing in a Major final against one of the best teams of all time.

That’s f***ing greatness.

For us, we won’t remember karrigan as the leader who won a Grand Slam. We won’t remember him as the guy who was replaced by gla1ve before Astralis hit their ceiling. We won’t remember his first stint on FaZe where he lost the Major final. We definitely, definitely will try not to remember the time on EnVy.

Ugh.

We will remember him as the guy who ran rings around the best in the business with a FaZe team who looked dead in the water in what might be his last ever real shot at winning another Major. We will remember him as the guy who made stage games worth watching. We will remember karrigan as a great.

For us, he should have retired there. He’s always said he wants to retire on top, and that was, even with the loss, a bloody great achievement. It would have been a beautiful end to a glorious career, and anything he does from here could only sully it.

Unless…

Unless somehow karrigan has one more twist left for us in 2026. He couldn’t, could he?

We’re not going to doubt him again. We’ve made that mistake one too many times.