FaZe Clan’s Friday may have been a shaky one in Pool Play, but after taking their second win of Group A Saturday against Elevate, FaZe is sitting pretty with a first place spot in their group.
“I was stressing out yesterday after we lost to the Gosu Crew, because I felt like we kind of let off the brakes after we won the first map,” said Dillon “Attach” Price. “It was a really good win that we needed against nV and against Elevate, because it was a do-or-die and determined whether or not we were heading to Winners or Losers, and we clutched up both times when we needed to.”
Tommy “ZooMaa” Paparratto was also happy that a good night’s rest made a difference for his side, and now it is a matter of keeping their Saturday rolling when they play in the championship bracket.
“We didn’t really come out hot, and I think that was our problem,” said ZooMaa. “Going into the next day, we had a whole new mindset, we talked a lot and we came out on top. It feels good to be on top, and now we’re just riding the confidence.”
With FaZe leading the first Strongholds match and hitting the 100 point mark, Attach realized that something was wrong with Elevate.
“I went around back to the second hardpoint – and we were up by 70-80 at this point – and I shot someone in the back not playing,” said Attach. “So I was just kind of like ‘Yo guys, someone’s not playing. They’re not moving.'”
At that point, Elevate backed out of the match and were given a forfeit, as MLG determined that the EU side did not tell a referee about the issue.
With that unfortunate circumstance happening in the first game, FaZe got some momentum for the rest of the series, and while having a hiccup on Uplink, closed out the series 3-1 with a second Hardpoint win.
“Having an extra map definitely helps out of five,” said Attach. “Having one is a huge difference, and we brought the momentum into Search and Destroy where we 6-0’d them there. So we were feeling really nice after that.”
Expectations were high for FaZe Clan heading into MLG Vegas, being a consensus top-three team heading into the event, and both ZooMaa and Attach believe that they will live up to the hype.
“You always think you can win. You never come into a tournament thinking you can’t win. We’re confident, we’re going to keep doing our thing, and keep talking about what we are going to do,” said ZooMaa.
“We definitely are going to win this event,” said Attach. “It just depends who steps in our way.”
With the loss against FaZe, Elevate currently sits at 1-1 in Group A, and their final match of pool play against The Gosu Crew will determine if they will head to the winners or losers bracket.
For all your Call of Duty and other esports updates, make sure you are following us on Twitter, @GAMURScom.
James Mattone is a journalist for GAMURS and can be contacted on Twitter –@TheJamesMattone.
Photo credits: Blazy
