Complexity fall to FaZe in close IEM Sydney Grand Final
Complexity start off the CS2 era with a huge result in Sydney, despite not winning IEM Sydney 2023 against FaZe in one of the best grand finals of recent CS history. Both teams had chances to win the series, but ultimately, it was the European squad that came out on top.
This is Complexity's best tier one LAN result ever and it comes in the very first Counter-Strike 2 event, showing a lot of promise for this squad. Clearly, this is the best team North America has had in a while.
The first map would be Complexity's Overpass and despite a 5-3 lead on the T-side, it would be FaZe leading 7-5 at the half. Falling as low as 9-5, Complexity managed to come back to a 10-10 game, giving hope back to the NA side. FaZe got back the lead, but Complexity came back again and closed the map 13-11 to get the series lead. Johnny "JT" Theodosiou was once again a big factor in this map win, leading the team in kills with 24.
Then came FaZe's Nuke and a poor CT-side from Complexity, only managing to win four rounds against their opponent's eight. The T-side for NA started with four straight round wins, tying the game up 8-8, but FaZe would only allow two more rounds after that, tying the series up 1-1 after winning Nuke 13-10. Despite the map loss, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski did great to keep the team in the game, just like in the previous map, and the following one.
The Ancient decider will go down in history as one of the best decider maps in 2023, at least. Complexity could not get things going on the T-side despite coming very close every time, as FaZe was getting a lot of the timings right and hitting some smoke shots, winning the half 9-3. When all seemed lost, Complexity clawed their way back with a 9-3 half of their own on the back of an amazing 25 defensive kills from Håkon "hallzerk" Fjærli. The first time Complexity would lead the game was after the first round of overtime and that would also be the only time. FaZe needed two overtimes to win Ancient, two very scrappy OTs, that could have gone Complexity's way in a different day.
All in all, despite the sadness of not getting the win, this Complexity squad and all the staff behind it can be very proud of what they achieved in Sydney and take this as a lesson and much valuable experience for the future, that, at this moment, looks bright for the Cowboys.
ComplexityFaZe| Complexity |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski |
70 - 55 | +15 | 95.6 | 74.4% | 1.32 |
 Håkon 'hallzerk' Fjærli |
64 - 57 | +7 | 74.2 | 76.8% | 1.14 |
| Ricky 'floppy' Kemery |
53 - 56 | -3 | 73.8 | 74.4% | 1.07 |
 Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou |
52 - 56 | -4 | 65.2 | 69.5% | 1.00 |
| Michael 'Grim' Wince |
50 - 59 | -9 | 67.8 | 72.0% | 0.96 |
| FaZe |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Helvijs 'broky' Saukants |
65 - 57 | +8 | 80.7 | 74.4% | 1.21 |
 Robin 'ropz' Kool |
63 - 53 | +10 | 78.1 | 69.5% | 1.14 |
| Håvard 'rain' Nygaard |
62 - 61 | +1 | 78.2 | 69.5% | 1.05 |
 Finn 'karrigan' Andersen |
49 - 60 | -11 | 63.5 | 67.1% | 0.85 |
 Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken |
39 - 61 | -22 | 62.6 | 65.9% | 0.74 |
