FaZe Clan close out 2017 as the champions of ECS Season 4
Counter-Strike fans were gifted with a hectic final day of competition in 2017, as the ECS season four finals ended with three exciting games in Cancun, Mexico.
FaZe Clan were victorious in the final day of the ECS season four finals, winning the last international event of the year by defeating Fnatic and Mousesports. Mouz, who had just come off a 2-1 semifinal upset over Astralis, put up an unexpected amount of firepower in the grand final of the $750,000 tournament.
Map one Nuke of the grand finals went well for the Mouz side, until the second half rolled around. FaZe kicked off a defensive comeback while down 11-4, but to no avail, Mouz closed out the map in round 30 thanks to a crucial play from Tomáš “oskar” Š?astný. The Czech AWPer had the biggest impact in the game with 31 kills and 108.3 average damage.
Both teams then continued their back and forth match on Inferno, where they were knotted throughout because of unpredictably close rounds on the B site. To change the pace of the map in the later rounds, FaZe and Mouz used aggressive pushes and risky gamble stacks, and it ultimately came down to another round 30. Despite economic and utility troubles, Mouz forced overtime with a retake during a quasi-buy. Inferno went into double overtime, before FaZe finally tallied a map in the series with a 22-18 score, putting Mouz on full tilt following the result.
With the finals coming down to Mirage, Mouz and FaZe traded pistol rounds and strings of buy rounds, resulting in the third straight neck-and-neck game. Mouz seemed to have the match in their grasp at 13-10 thanks to Miikka “suNny” Kemppi’s numerous multi-kills, but FaZe’s overwhelming offenses gave them another edge at 14-13. In round 29, Martin “STYKO” Styk essentially saved Mouz with an insane kill streak before Mirage went into overtime. The series was swayed in favor of FaZe when Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer literally fragged two Mouz attackers with one grenade for match point. Mirage then swiftly ended 19-17.
FaZe’s title win at the ECS Finals cements them at the top of CS:GO for now, despite the absence of SK Gaming, who’s been renowned as the world’s best in 2017. The key storyline heading into 2018 will be the newly kindled rivalry between SK and FaZe at the ELEAGUE Major: Boston in January. SK will be forced to play with João “felps” Vasconcellos instead of their new star, Ricardo “boltz” Prass, who helped them find success over FaZe at the ESL Pro League season five finals.
