Blast Premier Groups: FaZe will miss rain and head coach RobbaN

The North American CS:GO Juggernaut FaZe Clan will be without its star frager Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard at BLAST Premier Spring Groups as he will take paternity leave to attend the birth of his first child. Robert “RobbaN” Dahlström, the team’s head coach, will also be absent from the event due to a personal matter.

The veteran CS:GO player rain and head coach RobbaN will miss the upcoming BLAST Premier Spring Groups. Though the 28-year-old Norwegian rifler intends to return as soon as possible to FaZe’s active CS:GO lineup, the team has to find a substitute for him before the upcoming Blast Groups.

In a Twitter post, Kristian ‘k0nfig’ Wienecke interacted with FaZe’s IGL Finn “karrigan” Andersen, leading to speculation that the Danish rifler might participate in the tournament with FaZe as a stand-in. The former Astralis player, who is presently listed as Heroic’s replacement at the Blast Groups, also tweeted a cryptic message, which could be a possible hint at his stand-in appearance with FaZe. Rain’s temporary replacement, however, will be announced by the organization on January 20 before the team’s opening game against Complexity.

Rain’s return to the team was not officially confirmed in the announcement video, but the Norwegian player stated that he hoped to be available for the Polish competition, which starts on January 31. On the other side, the Swedish coach will return later this week or before IEM Katowice, according to the announcement.

With four trophies and near-total dominance, FaZe’s active lineup saw incredible success in 2022. It would be challenging for FaZe to rekindle that synergy with the new replacement that the organization will add in place of rain. However, the organization still has the big guns, Helvijs “broky” Saukants, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, and Robin “ropz” Kool, at their disposal, and given their performance in 2022, which won them all a spot in HLTV’s top 20, the team appears to be as lethal as it always was.

After a tremendous year, Rain takes a much-deserved break.

After winning four significant CS:GO events—IEM Katowice, ESL Pro League Season 15, PGL Major Antwerp, and IEM Cologne— rain and the team established themselves as the top CS:GO squad in the World Rankings. Rain finished the Major Grand Final match with a rating of 1.49 and the IEM Cologne Grand Final with 110 kills and 98 deaths, contributing heavily to the team’s victory at two of the most prestigious CS:GO events of the year.

As a result of his outstanding results in crucial games and playoffs as well as his reputation as one of the most successful players in the game, rain was named the 13th-best CS:GO player of 2022 by HLTV. Rain has already appeared on the HLTV top 20 list twice in his career, coming in at No. 4 in 2017 and No. 18 in 2018.

Header: Stephanie Lieske/ESL Gaming