Helvijs ‘broky’ Saukants will return to competitive action for the second half of the year following his benching prior to the BLAST.tv Austin Major.
In a move that Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen described as a “Hail Mary,” FaZe benched the Latvian Lazer in favour of Oleksander ‘s1mple’ Kostyljev. Just two months later, he’s back in the active roster.
Darragh Harbinson gives his overview of the issues present in FaZe, and why even a broky at his best may not be enough for the international roster.
Broky in 2025
As they say, ‘a change is as good as a rest.’ For FaZe, they’re banking on the opposite logic. That broky’s rest will be the change the roster needed in a stagnant 2025.
broky looked, at times, demotivated and truly out of sorts in 2025. The end of broky’s tenure saw him missing ‘the easy shots’ far too often, while displaying strange and erratic decision-making that left FaZe in hot water more often than not.
The Latvian went from averaging a 1.13 rating in 2023, to a 1.10 rating in 2024, to a 1.05 rating in 2025. Not much return for the highest economically demanding role in Counter-Strike. Some fans, especially those who enjoyed s1mple’s effect on FaZe’s morale at the Major, have questioned the return of the Latvian so soon after being initially benched.
There is no denying that broky was benched for a reason, but the possibility of those issues being resolved is an attractive one. Common sentiments around his reinstatement invoke the hope that rest brings.
‘Perhaps the burnout has washed away,’ ‘he’ll be hungrier than ever to prove himself.’ That’s all speculative, of course. broky, as always, was a man of few words for the announcement simply stating “I’m back.”
Why did FaZe bring broky back?
For FaZe, broky’s return makes sense. Quality AWPers are few and far between in CS2 so far. In broky, FaZe have the fourth highest HLTV-rated AWPer of 2024, a player who has consistently been in HLTV’s top 20 for four years straight, and top 10 for the last three years.
Outside of m0nesy, ZywOo, and Sh1ro, who are, of course, not going to move, FaZe can’t point to a more proven player in CS2. Even historically less elite players, such as benched Falcons AWPer, Abdul ‘Degster’ Gasanov, may be prohibitively expensive due to the AWPing talent drought present in CS2.
The move explains the “Hail Mary” move to recruit s1mple. While the Ukrainian has a dearth of CS2 officials, he is, of course, the CSGOAT, and capable of outperforming more limited players if he could evoke his classic form.
In reality, s1mple had a positive Stage 2 and Stage 3 showing before a playoff series vs The MongolZ to forget. Ultimately, after two events and only a handful of maps played, s1mple is still a huge risk, and he would be an expensive one to buy out due to his remaining contract with NaVi.
Faced with two risks, FaZe have chosen the cheaper one with a hefty upside. Put simply, if broky can return to form, he will save FaZe a mountain of money and solve a huge competitive headache at the same time.
Of course, there are a lot of “ifs” involved. FaZe’s payoff will only come IF broky can recover, but even if he doesn’t, then s1mple will most likely be out of contract at the end of the year, having signed a three-year deal in 2022.
The conditions make bringing broky back a low-risk venture for a FaZe who will undoubtedly do well enough in the second half of the year to remain within invite range to all the big events, such as the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025.
To summarise, bringing broky back does not surprise me, nor does it particularly worry me. What worries me is the possibility that FaZe will make zero changes to their rifling core, which has been blatantly malfunctional in 2025.
FaZe’s latent rifling struggles
Following IEM Melbourne, I wrote a feature for Esports Insider detailing FaZe’s struggles to date, which discussed FaZe’s rifling struggles.
Here is a summary of those issues:
- Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken‘s departure left the rifling core imbalanced towards passivity, with David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský (a naturally passive lurker) replacing him. frozen joined FaZe when Robin ‘ropz’ Kool was still present. Resultantly, he played more star roles with ropz taking frozen’s traditional anchor/lurker roles.
- FaZe lost Robin ‘ropz’ Kool, a unique player whose abilities cannot be directly replaced by anyone.
- After ropz’s departure, frozen kept his existing positions instead of his favoured positions in MOUZ. The effect it has on FaZe’s overall balance was to reduce FaZe’s map control due to frozen’s playstyle.
- While Jon ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski was brought in to bring more aggression to the roster, his more reserved style at FaZe compared to Complexity has not solved the issue.
- Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard has sacrificed many of his natural positions to accommodate EliGE and fill the gaps left by ropz. While rain is an accomplished roleplayer, FaZe are losing out on rain performing his best.
- Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen is performing poorly individually as he tries to plug holes and micromanage his team to success. This contrasts with Vitality, Falcons, and MOUZ who IGLs are more impactful.
To put it bluntly, FaZe have issues that have existed since Twistzz’s departure. While 2024 ended with FaZe reaching two major finals, and conjuring that ‘FaZe magic’, that magic has gradually been fading since 2023, with last year bringing in only one trophy, IEM Chengdu.
While broky returning to form may help provide a stronger backbone to FaZe, I fail to see how it would solve the latent issues that have plagued the roster over that time.
To add to that, the competition is simply better than in 2024. Rosters like Falcons, Spirit, MOUZ, and Vitality, especially, have clawed back and subsequently surpassed a FaZe, who were the firepower kings from 2022-23.
Comparing Vitality’s rifling core to FaZe’s, we see a team who are all elite in their individual roles, and balance well in terms of space-taking and passive elements, compared to a FaZe roster that has good moments where everything works, but just as quickly falls apart and becomes disjointed when put under pressure.
This year, FaZe have to watch as Vitality win competition after competition, not truly being competitive for any individual event.
As much as the Counter-Strike community wanted to dream of a different outcome in Austin, the reality was that FaZe were never going to get close. Not just because they had little time together as a roster, or because s1mple was rusty, but because FaZe’s remaining four players do not have a competitive foundation for success.
The Counter-Strike world was happy to embrace FaZe’s Hail Mary at Austin, but if FaZe believe that an in-form broky will solve all their issues, I believe they are simply praying. The CS2 competitive landscape is simply too strong to have players out of place, uncomfortable in positions that don’t match their skillset.
For 2025, FaZe’s solutions will be anything but s1mple.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
