CS:GO: FaZe Clan announce benching of long-time star player

After a difficult year for FaZe Clan’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster, the team has finally announced that a change will be made.

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The all-star roster, which briefly fell outside of the HLTV Top 5 rankings earlier this year, has gone through a difficult past 12 months. Rifler Olof ‘Olofmeister’ Kajbjer Gustafsson took some time away from Counter-Strike for personal reasons and the team also handed IGL responsibilities over to star player Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac for a brief period.

However, a change has finally been made with FaZe Clan announcing that in-game leader Finn ‘Karrigan’ Andersen is now seeking other opportunities after being benched.

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Karrigan, 28, had been one of FaZe’s longest-tenured members after joining the roster in 2016 from Astralis. Since then, the high-powered squad has won multiple titles including ESL One New York 2017 and ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018 but has fallen short at Major events.

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The former TSM captain took to Twitter to announce the news of the change, tweeting: “Benched. Will write a longer statement at another point. if any orgs are interested contact FaZe.”

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The move, which has been rumoured for some time, finally comes just after the team finished 5th at Blast Pro Series Lisbon. The fifth-placed finish was yet another disappointing placing for the all-star roster ahead of the upcoming IEM Katowice Major in early 2019.

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With plenty of high expectations around FaZe’s roster, whoever replaces Karrigan will have to help them get over their Major troubles. The team found some success this year when Jørgen ‘cromen’ Robertsen played as a stand-in, however, they are likely to target a star player.