Twistzz on roster moves: "You don't always have to go and search for the new shiny thing"

Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken and FaZe have gotten their BLAST Premier Fall Groups debut off to a flyer by swiftly taking down OG in a 2-0 win. OG's map pick of Inferno was a bit troublesome for the North American organization, but they managed to see it through and got a clean win on Mirage. Dust2.us' Gonçalo "GoncOak" Carvalho had the chance to talk with Twistzz about the series, the rifler's off-season, Liquid's move to NA and Counter-Strike 2.

Inferno was really close and you didn't show up as you normally do. On Mirage you also had a tough first couple of rounds, but you managed to bounce back nicely. Are you still rusty from the off-season? How do you evaluate the team's performance overall?

I think it's fine, our team performance was good, I think we got unlucky on Inferno. I'm often the player that's called over to do certain things and I felt like, especially in the first half of Inferno, I think I was called into a lot of bad spots. That's not anyone's fault, really, if they believe it's the right play for me there, then that's how it is, we lose as a team. Mirage was way better, we had a solid T-side on Inferno too, it got a little bit out of hand but I think Finn was calling pretty well around some of the positions that we got into. There's no rust, I have played like 72 hours in the past weeks, I have just been chilling, you know?

How did your off-season go? You told us previously that you would be busy with personal situations like moving. Did you get to rest at all?

There's definitely some rest, I mean, I tried to stay away from CS as much as I could. I'm still learning what to do during player breaks, because at the moment, I don't know if resting is good for me, I don't know if I'm a player that needs to be playing CS still everyday a bit for like an hour or so. I'm still trying to figure out, but I'm starting to notice that I'm not kind of player that does well avoiding the game on player breaks and I think that's something I'm going to stop doing.

But yeah, got to rest a bit, the first two weeks of the break were a bit stressful, trying to figure out personal things, renewing things in Canada because a lot of stuff, when I left abruptly at the end of Liquid, I didn't get to move right away and another thing that came with that was not solving things in Europe, like having a bank in Europe and everything, it's tough to do when you don't have a visa consistently. Now things are possible, a visa is there thanks to my fiancé, she got everything done and next player break is going to be hopefully some bit of playing and chilling given that it is Malta, so it's kind of vacation and home at the same time.

Did you play any CS2 during your break or only CS:GO?

It's just CS[:GO], I feel like CS2 is in a position where it's not really, at least for me, it's not enjoyable to play, at the moment. I know we did the SteelSeries Showmatch, but I feel like the game, somehow, everything feels delayed, it's clunky, some things are not optimized and it just doesn't feel like CS right now, at least for me. They are big developers, they are going to figure it out, they have had CS:GO doing well for eleven years now, things are going well. I look forward to seeing what Valve ends up doing with the game and, of course, it's CS:GO all the way until more news comes out.

You briefly mentioned your time with Liquid. I want to talk about Liquid now, you have the chance of playing them next and I'm sure you are aware of their current situation, leaving NA, what are your thoughts on them having now a European core?

I think they are fine. I saw NAF's interview, I think he is spot on right? What are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to stick with their identity and see how far they last and if they make top four and if they fall and don't win it's fine but, obviously, I know Keith, he wants to be a winner, he wants to do whatever it takes to win and he has expressed his opinion on transitioning to Europe at some point and if he is able to stay with the organizations that he likes, while also playing in Europe and having a competitive team, I think it's great. They were methodical with their changes, they got statistically two of the most aggressive players and two of the most passive players and I think there was definitely thought-process with that going into making their team and you can appreciate that, for sure. They have to do something, it shows that the org is willing to take risks to be competitive and I don't think people should really be mad at that. I saw people saying negative things about leaving the region and I think it's just unfair. What does NA want, do you want two players on a team that can have a chance to win and follow them or do you want to just see five NA players lose all the time?

Have you played Liquid in any scrims?

No, actually. They are the one team we haven't played against. We have practiced against the new lineups that were announced, we even played against C9 before they were announced and they looked pretty good.

You talked about rosters that changed, you are one of the only three teams in this event that hasn't changed players. How important is it to you to finish this last stint of CS:GO together?

I mean, it's important. Look at out team, there's no reason to really change, what can you change in our team? We don't want to mess with the chemistry, you can see how long it can take to build things up, especially if things don't go well and I don't think any of us, even for a second, thought that this team was going to make changes. Everyone's happy playing together.

I know CS2 may be a long way out but are you looking to go into that game with this lineup or is it too early to talk about that?

Of course. For the foreseeable future, with the CS2 Major, this is the lineup that we have chosen, I think we have great players for finding new things on the new game and the team is just really strong, and well-bonded together, there's no reason to hurt what we have. You don't always have to go and search for the new shiny thing. What we have now works and we just have to appreciate what we have.

Not a lot changed with your team, but yesterday RobbaN announced his retirement. How much does that affect the team? Is he leaving immediately?

Yeah, he has been very loyal to FaZe and FaZe has been really loyal to him, so I cannot say if FaZe and him are going to cut ties. I know he's a good person behind the scene to have in an org, he is very smart. It came abruptly, none of us were ready for it. Whatever is happening with him, I hope everything is alright and he is doing well. It does hurt, Robert was a big piece of this team, you could see it in vlogs and I wish people got to see 50% of what he does for us and our team. One could say that he is the dad of our team, he was the dad of our team, and now we are without a father, you know? The kids have to survive on their own now. It puts more weight on Finn's shoulders but it's on the rest of us, you pick up some slack and notice where the gaps are and some of us have to take over some of the roles Robert had, creating certain things and helping with anti.

Final question, do you believe that you guys are capable of finishing your group first?

Yeah, of course. Us and G2 are the ones who didn't make changes within our group, so I wouldn't be surprised if we played G2 Monday. We have a gap, so we get to see and prepare whatever team we play, I think we are definitely capable of finishing first in our group.

FaZe will face either Liquid or G2 on Monday in the upper-bracket finals. The winner of that match will be one win away from securing their spot in the Fall Final, but the loser will still get more chances through the bracket and last-chance gauntlet.