FaZe eliminated at CAC 2025; Playoffs set

Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 16/10/2025

FaZe were eliminated in their lower bracket contest against the young international roster of FUT, losing 2-1 in the Bo3 series.

The loss was the second loss for FaZe to FUT at the competition, after FUT sent FaZe down to the lower bracket in the opening round of the competition.

A tournament to forget for disjointed FaZe

FaZe started off the series extremely slowly, quickly falling to a 9-1 deficit on Ancient, as Jakub ‘jcobbb’ Pietruszewski struggled.

The roster recovered on the CT half, but it was not enough as they narrowly lost the map 13-11.

Mirage was another close and scrappy affair, with FaZe prevailing 13-11 this time behind 23 kills from David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský.

On the deciding map of Dust 2, an impressive showing from Laurențiu ‘lauNX’ Țârlea and Dmytro ‘dem0n’ Myroshnychenko led FUT to victory on their T-side.

While the match itself could have gone either way, the patterns evident in the match reflected FaZe’s overall level at CAC, which was largely messy.

The roster dropped at least a map in every series at the event, against FUT twice, and in 2-1 victories against TYLOO and B8.

FaZe were invited to CAC 2025 as an exception to VRS’s tournament operation requirements, the rules that govern the Counter-Strike ecosystem.

Technically, they were ranked too highly to receive a direct invitation because CS Asia Championships 2025 is a Tier 2 event.

The roster was invited to the event as the winners of the last CAC event in 2023, making them the strongest team on paper in the competition.

Despite their ranking advantage, FaZe were eliminated in the group stage of the event.

Self-inflicted wounds for FaZe

That elimination doesn’t come without excuses.

Firstly, this was FaZe’s first event with their new permanent lineup after the addition of Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken and the benching of Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard.

FaZe were planning to play ESL Pro League with the CAC roster, but were forced into fielding rain as their invited roster only shared two players with their initial roster.

As a result, the roster did not play or practice with jcobbb at Pro League, making this event the first time the full five are together in the server for officials.

Second, FaZe faced a swift turnaround from Pro League, with some players flying out immediately after their Third/Fourth place decider against Mouz at Pro League.

Both of these issues are arguably the FaZe organisation’s fault, but that doesn’t change the challenge those issues caused the players.

For FaZe, the loss will still sting, but the focus will be that the disruption does not hurt their chances at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, where they will start at Stage 1.

That means FaZe must find their feet sooner rather than later, and build teamwork and protocols amongst the newly assembled five.

CS Asia Championships playoffs:

Quarterfinals:

3DMAX vs Fnatic
Legacy vs FUT

Semi-Finals:

Team Liquid vs Quarterfinal A winner
Heroic vs Quarterfinal B winner

Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

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.

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