rain on burnout: "We actually wanted to skip IEM Chengdu"

FaZe entered IEM Dallas as they always are, dangerous. A nearly flawless group stage brought them to the playoffs, their home turf, yet somehow, a G2 with a stand-in eliminated from the event.

After the elimination, Dust2.us' Daniel "Scoobster" Khurgin spoke with Håvard "rain" Nygaard on the team's elimination, 2025, and Dust2's addition to the map pool.

You were eliminated by G2 with Stewie2K. What do you think went wrong there?

I think there's a few things that went wrong on our side. I don't think we were prepared enough for the maps we played. I also think they had a little bit of a buff with Stewie, somehow. They took advantage of it and they surprised us with Dust2 pick for sure.

You guys had an extremely dominant start to CS2, but these past couple events, you haven't continued that grand final streak. Can you point to any one specific reason?

No I don't think there's any specific reason, I think there's a multitude of reasons. Maybe burnout? I think everybody's tired. Going to the finals of every single tournament makes you have no days off during the tournament itself. The travel and everything just adds up. After London, we're gonna have a good rest and come with a fresh start and a fresh mind for next season.

We're nearing the end of another season where FaZe is saying burnout is really affecting them, is there anything specific that the org is trying to do to help you guys or you're trying to put in place? This is a recurring theme for you.

Yeah, I think it's a recurring theme. I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves during the season. We always super hard, maybe a little too hard in the start, and I think it catches up to us in the end. Of course we have to figure out a way to balance it a little bit for the next season and find a way where we don't feel down for the last three events. We gotta find a way to get back to it.

Speaking on burnout, considering 2025 is nearly approaching, we have four major tournament organizers who are in the field now, we have events back-to-back-to-back, sometimes even overlapping. Do you have any fears as to how that schedule could affect you guys?

No because you're not contracted with any of the organizers. You can pick and choose and I think that also means we can pick and choose how many tournaments we want to go to. I think we had a pretty good talk about it and set a plan on how we're gonna do that so we don't go one tournament, two days home, then next tournament. I think we're gonna have a good time figuring that out.

Is it safe to say if you weren't partnered with both ESL and BLAST we wouldn't see you in so many events?

Yeah, I think so. We actually wanted to skip Chengdu. We tried making it happen but it was too late already. In the end it worked out, we won the tournament. Of course there's some times we don't want to go, but that's how it is at the moment

With these events back-to-back-to-back, how do you yourself or the team reset and focus for the next event?

For me, the main factor that helps me with my mental health is the gym. Just going in there and putting on some music and just blacking out and focusing on that for a while. And being home with my family as well. Making sure I make good use of the days I have at home, try to stay away from the computer and fully reset.

You alluded to G2 surprising you guys with the Dust2 pick, what are your thoughts on it entering the map pool considering you're 0-1 on it?

I'm always a big fan of Dust2, I like it. But I wish they did a little bit of an overhaul, somehow. I don't know what kind of changes they could do but I feel like at the moment, it just plays like the old Dust2 with smokes breaking and smokes covering a bit more area in some places. I would like to see a little bit more happening to it, I don't know how exactly to do it without ruining it, but I would really hope there's something else. Right now, T-side, it's just long rush or slow defaults, right. I would like to have something that could balance it a bit more.

One last question, do you breathe a sigh of relief now that Guild Eagles have disbanded?

laughs Yeah, nightmares from those guys. That was the worst opponent we could get back in the days. We lost so many important games to them, I'm not happy they disbanded, sad for the guys, but good for us I guess.