After winning four S-tier trophies in 2023, as well as the Intel Grand Slam Season 4 with FaZe Clan, it makes perfect sense for Robin “ropz” Kool to be named the 3rd best CS2 player of the year.
The truth is that in terms of firepower and individual stats, there’s no one better than him on FaZe Clan’s roster. Everyone plays well, he is one notch above the rest in almost every match.
Ropz joined FaZe after competing for almost five years for MOUZ. His decision proved to be a good one, not just for him but for the club as well. Almost as soon as he joined, the results obtained by FaZe changed completely and 2022 ended up being the best year in the org’s Counter-Strike history.
Impressive stats in the biggest tournaments and against elite-level opposition earn @ropz the third place in HLTV’s Top 20 Players of 2023 ranking, powered by @1xBet_Esports
🔗 https://t.co/vWgYXTXZWS pic.twitter.com/sCvWFiXvDX
— HLTV.org (@HLTVorg) January 13, 2024
FaZe Clan’s results in 2023
In 2023 it was time for FaZe to achieve amazing results once more. Except this time, most of them came near the end of the season. FaZe won ESL Pro League S17 in March, and then needed around seven months to start winning again.
What helped them enormously was the fact that Counter-Strike 2 was launched and many teams were not prepared for it. The game was full of bugs and new elements that had to be accounted for, and the process of adapting to it was slow.
But FaZe Clan’s players, probably assisted by Finn “karrigan” Andersen, found a much faster way to master the new version of CS. And as a result, they won the first three tournaments without facing too much opposition.
Things eventually changed after the departure of Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, but before he left he brought FaZe a lot of glory.
In all of this process, ropz was constantly one of the people who gave it their best and had excellent individual performances.
In the Grand Final from IEM Sydney, played against Complexity, ropz finished with a score of 63 – 53. He wasn’t the best player on the server but he was definitely one of the best.
At Thunderpick World Championship, he was by far the strongest player on the server in the Grand Final against Virtus.pro. That 52 – 35 / 1.43 performance was well received by the public and was absolutely necessary for the team’s success.
The score on both maps was very close: 13 – 10 on Ancient and 19 – 17 on Vertigo. In such scenarios, it’s usually the superstar players who carry, and that’s what ropz did.
Header: FaZe Clan