FaZe Clan are the winners of IEM Cologne 2022

At the end of a long tournament, and a long Bo5 match that could have gone either way, FaZe Clan are the champions of IEM Cologne.

No doubt, this was one of the best Grand Finals we’ve ever seen at an event of this stature and the highlights will be part of CS:GO history for future generations.

Match Analysis

Ahead of the match, it was clear that FaZe Clan had a slight advantage going into this, simply because of their formidable IGL, Finn “karrigan” Andersen. His leadership style is well-known and his understanding of the game is second to none. But he wouldn’t have succeeded without some absolutely mind-blowing plays from his teammates.

The match had five maps: Inferno (FaZe), Overpass (Natus Vincere), Ancient (FaZe), Mirage (Natus Vincere), and Nuke.

Despite being three games behind at halftime, FaZe Clan won on Inferno (16-13) and looked entirely capable of winning the match with ease. But then, on Overpass, Natus Vincere quickly regained control of the situation but not without strong opposition from FaZe (16-13 again).

Ancient was picked by FaZe because the team had a 70% win rate on it. But Na’Vi dominated the first half, giving the impression that the battle would be quick. In the second half, however, FaZe Clan did something remarkable and, recovering from a score of 3-12 and sending the map into overtime.

But for some reason, after winning around 10 rounds in a row, they all of a sudden stopped winning and Na’Vi actually defeated them despite their seemingly unstoppable momentum.

Mirage went the other way. Na’Vi’s players were completely unable to find their synergy and FaZe won with ease: 16-9. It was all down to Nuke. Even before the map began, the analysts knew that Na’Vi were in trouble. FaZe Clan’s win rate on Nuke was 90% and this was easily their best map. For Na’Vi, Nuke was just another map.

The CIS squad would have probably won anyway, but unfortunately for them, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, their superstar player, had one of the worst performances of his career, finishing with a K-D score of -3 and a rating 2.0 of 0.87. Rarely do we see s1mple perform so poorly.

At the same time, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken had a rating 2.0 score of 1.40 and a few moments of off-the-charts creativity. His plays were wild and have shocked the CS:GO community. If you want to understand better, watch the last 2-3 rounds of map five. They are an absolute masterclass.

FaZe won map five with a score of 16-14 and became the winners of IEM Cologne 2022.

Header: FaZe Clan