REZ, GamerLegion end FaZe’s Aussie title defence with astonishing double comeback

FaZe will not be able to defend their IEM Sydney crown from 2023 following a last-gasp 2-0 (19-16, 13-11) victory to GamerLegion in the last Group A match at IEM Melbourne. GamerLegion are fresh off the Austin Major MRQ where they fell shockingly short of a spot at the pinnacle event, but they're already setting out to make amends.

The series was as close as it gets with GamerLegion asked to make two comebacks, including nine-straight rounds on Nuke. They delivered, with Fredrik "REZ" Sterner the leading man topping the server with 46 kills.

However, as he says to esports.gg after the win, his form (and map two on Nuke in particular) was all thanks to the mastermind leadership duo of Ashley "ashhh" Battye and in-game leader Erik "ztr" Gustafsson.

What a win, a nine-round comeback at the end there and an awesome 1v3 clutch by ztr. Talk me through that incredible game against FaZe that locked you into the playoffs here.

Yeah, I felt like we definitely fought to the end, you can see that. I thought in every round we'd be leading, but even though we were ahead, I felt like we definitely struggled in the first part of both comebacks.

I really felt that we always believed that we could win the game, and you can also feel it on FaZe when we started winning rounds that they started crumbling a bit and started to make small mistakes that we capitalised on, thanks also to ashhh. 

ztr made some incredible calls in this game and single-handedly won it with his clutches as well, he won us a lot of important rounds. Without him we wouldn't have made it, so super stoked and happy.

This is your first time out here since IEM Sydney 2019’s epic NiP vs. Fnatic match, but it’s also a trip to Australia smack-bang in the middle of several events overseas. How have you guys managed the fatigue and the travel for this year? 

It's been really rough. We played Bucharest and then instantly flew to Berlin to play the MRQ and now we flew straight here. The guys are tired. We're tired, we're exhausted, but that doesn't stop us from giving our all.

It is affecting us a little bit, definitely. We have this and then we have a few days at home at least that we can recover before PGL Astana up next. I mean, I think we're feeling pretty good in the game, but you can definitely feel the energy sometimes that we are really tired.

At the very end of your stint with NiP you were putting up some great individual results. This year it’s been more of the same but at a far more consistent level. What do you credit to that at GamerLegion? 

It's a good question, I'm not really sure. I just feel super comfortable right now with this roster and with my coach ashhh. He's doing a great job in keeping me comfortable and is making me do the things that I like to do. Erik [ztr] is also doing a huge part in making me shine.

He makes me really comfortable on all the maps, dropping me AKs and M4s all the time. He wants me to perform and play well and he sets me up many times. and  he sets me up for it a lot of times. In the end I just feel more comfortable here than I ever was before, it's just that.

You mentioned coach ashhh. A lot of people have been giving him plenty of praise for bringing this GamerLegion project to life every single time even with new, less experienced players.  What is it about his coaching style that is different from anyone you've had before?  

Good question again. He's really good at keeping us structured and making our individuals shine as much as possible. 

I think he focuses a lot on getting as much as possible out of an individual. He has focused a lot on what I can do to perform in these games and what PR can do to shine in his games.  And then in the team structure, he's doing a really good job in keeping us together and  playing really well as a team. I think that's one of the biggest things he's doing. 

In a previous interview ashhh mentioned that a lot of the growth you guys still had to do was less about the game and technical ability but about your mental. It's been some time since then — what approach and what changes have you guys made to work on this mental change? 

We now have a mental coach behind the scenes that we're working with every day. That's something we've been focusing on a lot this event in particular, mental techniques to handle pressure and handle the game.

When we are in these 11-4 deficits, these bad spots, we now have our techniques to handle it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So yeah, I think we’re definitely better at handling mental pressure.

Sometimes you can see we are lacking it, because we are a young team and have really young players that don’t have the experience in the game, so you’re going to see some flashes of overconfidence.

We’re working on relaxing, and that comes with experience and time, so we’ll see.

REZ and GamerLegion won't have long to relax. Their Thursday off will likely include some preparation for their Friday quarterfinal where they'll face the loser of Vitality and Falcons in front of a packed-out Rod Laver Arena.

Keep up with IEM Melbourne and all things CS2 at esports.gg.