JW rolls back the years to shock FaZe in BLAST Bounty

Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 13/01/2026

Veteran legend, Jesper ‘JW’ Wecksell, rolled back the years as his Eyeballers team scuppered FaZe 2-1 at BLAST Bounty.

JW is a co-founder and co-owner of the Swedish organisation, which has sought to develop young Swedish talent, making the victory all the sweeter for the former Fnatic hero.

The loss eliminates FaZe from qualifying for the LAN finals in Malta, giving the Counter-Strike community the first shock of the Tier 1 scene in 2026.

Eyeballers’ young guns shine as FaZe finalists falter

BLAST Bounty’s draft format allows for lower-ranked teams to select their opposition for BLAST Bounty, but most teams played it relatively safe.

Not Eyeballers and JW, they boldly chose to play FaZe, whose most recent match had been the StarLadder Budapest Major Grand Final.

JW emphasised that he wanted to come back “with a bang” into Tier 1, and they certainly achieved that online.

FaZe seemed to be in control early on, as they raced to a 9-3 half on Ancient, closing the map out comfortably with a 13-6 victory.

As Ancient was Eyeballers’ pick, the prevailing feeling was that FaZe would walk to victory on Mirage.

Instead, FaZe looked hapless and uncoordinated on Mirage, as Eyeballers couldn’t do any wrong in a 13-4 demolition of the Major Grand Finalists.

Inferno felt tighter, both in a good and bad way, as Eyeballers wrestled a 7-5 half away from FaZe.

Once the Swedes were on the T side, they took complete control of the map, winning the second round forcebuy, and leaving FaZe’s economy in shambles.

Eyeballers converted the map 13-7 to eliminate FaZe from the competition, behind an outrageous Jonatan ‘bobeksde’ Persson performance, which garnered a 2.03 HLTV rating on the map.

Following the match, JW emphasised on broadcast that the team were likely further into their season than FaZe, and the sharpness of their young elements certainly backed that up.

FaZe must avoid regression to 2025 form

For FaZe, the loss can be written off as a rusty loss in an online competition, but it’s not the first early exit for FaZe; in fact, far from it.

FaZe suffered several ignominious losses in 2025, with their Budapest run drastically improving the public sentiment of the roster.

Immediately preceding the Budapest Major, FaZe faced a sorry exit at the CS Asia Championship, and IEM Chengdu, where they finished in joint last place.

The CS Asia Championship exit saw them lose twice to FUT, who progressed at BLAST Bounty after victory over OG.

While this event is ultimately not significant in comparison to Budapest, FaZe will not want to regress back to the level they showed before Budapest for much of 2025.

From second place at the Major, to last place at BLAST Bounty, FaZe resist any level of predictability.

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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