RLCS: FaZe Clan win NA Fall Open

FaZe defended North America’s honor with a 4-1 victory in the Grand Finals of the first RLCS 2022-23 Regional against Gen.G Mobil1 Racing. FaZe had to get past G2 en route to the Grand Finals, but last season’s runner-up stood little chance against a superbly playing FaZe. 

It’s a deja vu because at the start of the last RLCS, FaZe won the first regional in North America. The opponent at that time was NRG, but this time, they were eliminated in the Swiss stage. Instead, a new challenger has emerged in North American region — Gen.G, a newly formed roster of Joseph “noly” Kidd, Nick “Chronic” Iwanski, and Jack “ApparentlyJack” Benton.

Swiss Stage

The Grand Final game between FaZe and Gen.G was a repeat, because the teams already met in the first match of the group stage. FaZe, as the sixth seed, had to face the fourteenth seed Gen.G. Both teams gave each other nothing in this game, with FaZe winning 3-1 thanks to a strong defensive performance with 21 saves from 36 shots.

Afterwards, Gen.G won all games of their Swiss Stage against Team AXLE, Dignitas, and NRG while only losing one game. Meanwhile, FaZe beat Version1 and OpTic Gaming but suffered a 1-3 loss to G2. Both teams thus qualified for the knockout phase in the same round of the Swiss Stage.

Playoffs

The highlight of the quarterfinals was Gen.G’s defeat of Version1 at 4-1. It was Chronic who often thwarted Version1’s offensive efforts with eleven saves. What was Chronic for Gen.G, was mist for FaZe, with 17 Pards in six quarterfinal games against Shopify Rebellion. The newcomer to FaZe was particularly strong in the first and last game, each with five saves and almost as many points as his two teammates combined.

In the semifinals, both teams left no question that they belong in the final and showed this with impressive plays. FaZe knocked out G2 while Gen.G knocked out Spacestation Gaming, both with a 4-1 score.

Championship Sunday

On Championship Sunday there was an incident between the two teams. Warmup matches were set before the official matches, but FaZe didn’t show up for the scrims against Gen.G, as a tweet from noly shows:

The warmup was canceled, but it was probably not the first time that FaZe have missed scrims, as some tweets show:

Grand final

Both teams showed stable defensive performances with five saves per game, but it was FaZe’s offensive that decided the game. While just under 7.3% of Gen.G’s shots resulted in a goal, FaZe reached up to 24.4%. Thus, FaZe Jason “Firstkiller” Corral, Caden “Sypical” Pellegrin, and Nick “mist” Costello became the NA Fall Open Champions. 

Header: FaZe Clan / Twitter