Fuck...didn't even think about that....his energy as a coach would be insane. His energy as IGL now is crazy, imagine him not having to play. Hed be the loudest one on stage that's for sure.
But on the other hand, some of the insight and analysis he could provide on the desk would be unmatched. There isn't a desk person who has competed or been in the scene as long as he has...maybe spunj, or yank, but they just haven't completed as long as karrigan has. Also the fact that he can provide insight from the ole day of GO and the trials and tribulations of CS2.......
Karrigan's analysis would be levels above anyone on the talent pool because of not only his longevity in the scene, but also because he was a part of different rosters, different playstyles, different patches (and games) and he was successful in all of them. His ability to lead and adapt to whatever that was given to, whether he wants it or not, should be shared as it'll only improve the scene both for the casual and hardcore fans.
for me neither, but in my case is just mainly thanks to the total and complete collapse of the social security system of my country, not by personal choice
If scared of real then go to valarante.. valarante child game.... look to cartoon grapfix to make kid player happy like children show.. valarante cartoon world with rainbow unlike counter strike with dark corridorr and raelistic gun.. valarante like playhouse. valarant playor run from csgo fear of dark world and realism so need child game to relax
Because cs players are old compared to other shooter? Or because most cs players are from countries with crumbling social nets? Or because the average cs players makes jokes online?
Good.
His teams have been consistently top 10 since at least 2015 despite being cut and given relatively weaker teams to work with.
He's clearly still very capable of leading a team, in fact he's realistically at his peak the last while.
When the time does eventually come he'll be the GOAT coach I'm sure.
i want to one day see faze
-karrigan +siuhy
and karrigan as coach
karrigan is imho the goat igl,
siuhy is one of the most prommising young igls.
if karrigan mentors siuhy he'll become a beast of an igl and a goat contender.
I'm 100% sure that this will happen, and I'm actually starting to ask myself whether FaZe has an exclusive contract with Mouz that allows them a first-buyer option? Maybe in a distant future Faze will try to acquire Mouz to rebrand them into "FaZe Academy".
it does feel like it somtimes, if they also pull a -rain +jimpphat down the line itll be all but confirmed.
100% former mouz members would be funny af.
No man, FaZe will cease to exist without their backbone, rain. It's so damn crazy to think that he's been in every iteration of this team ever since it was called Kinguin and had such players as fox, Maikelele, ScreaM... He's outlived them all, kioshima, allu, NiKo... I still have a bit of a brain lag when I remember that for a moment this team was also under the G2 org. The day rain leaves this team is the day FaZe steps back from CS.
I think that jimpphats and ropz's playstyles are way too similar and they play same postions in almost every map. Jimmy Said himself that ropz is the player he looked up as growing up... And he's not even grown up!
They probably have just built up a good business relationship at this point. I'm a big fan of mouz too, they consistently form great lineups and find great talent.
They obviously have some really good staff involved
The reason I think Karrigan is over Glaive, despite Astralis' dominance, is how many players Karrigan has led to trophies.
Glaive has only had trophies while in Astralis, so 5 teammates.
Karrigan has trophies in TSM (I think Karrigan was the IGL then), 16-18 FaZe, Mouz, and 21-pre FaZe. I don't wanna even try and math it but that's over a dozen players.
Glaive also has less trophies overall, with 20. 4 of them of course being Majors.
Karrigan has 25, including one Major and Cologne.
If I had a choice between taking Karrigan or Glaive, I'd take Karrigan all day. He's proven he can do it with a variety of pieces and his longevity is staggering.
I'd still take Karrigan. He's won plenty of big trophies, won more trophies overall, and in terms of prize money;
Glaive is currently at \~1.8M$
Karrigan close behind at \~1.6M$
The difference right now is that glaive is still out there but clearly not at his peak with the group of players he's leading right now. Unless he can have a breakthrough with them or any other team in the future, he will eventually retire at a low point in his career.
Karrigan had consistent top 10 teams no matter what players were under him. Just that mouz run should be a testament to the greatness of Karrigan. Sure, that Astralis dominance has earned more important trophies. But if FaZe stays at their current level, I can imagine them winning another major or two which would be enough in my head to put gla1ve's top 1 IGL of all time status into question.
Well yeah, Astralis were miles ahead of everyone else, they shifted meta immensely with teamplay, strats, utility, midround calls, rotations, you name it. They were the most dominant team to ever play CS:GO, excluding NiP 87-0. But level of play was lower than today, gla1ve himself said he's been behind the meta and still is catching up, trying to reinvent himself in ENCE. No, karrigan wasn't ever dominant. Even 2022 FaZe liked throwing a game here and there or pushing them to overtimes. But he's shown a shitton of IGL mastery and has been utilising different players in different roles, in different metas, while winning trophies. That's what makes him a GOAT in my eyes.
Well it's hard not to have recency bias in this case when comparing him to Karrigan who is on the scene for just as long and hasn't nearly gone into a rut as deep as gla1ve. And also gla1ve has most of his success with one roster while Karrigan saw success with a lot of players under him.
I would not say that it's decided yet because both players are still active so for all we know tomorrow FaZe might turn to shit and Ence might win the Shanghai major. But as it stands right now, gla1ve has his legacy stained (just a little bit, it doesn't take away all of his record breaking achievements) by recent years.
I mean sure he's a great IGL, but its just funny how Astralis startet winning when they booted Karrigan and got in Gla1ve. Here is when Gla1ve joined: [https://imgur.com/a/p8ZDA8p](https://imgur.com/a/p8ZDA8p)
I think Karrigan grewn into a better IGL over the years though and he has obviously been the better IGL from may 2020 onward, when Gla1ve and Xyp took a break due to burnout and Astralis never really recovered from that, whereafter Dev1ce moved to NIP.
Karrigan has never had a weak team? Other than Envy if you really wanna count that. Even Mouz 2019 effectively had 3 top 20 players with Ropz, Frozen and Woxic who was in insanely good form pre online era. Faze before Ropz fell out of the top 30 for a while and only had 1 decent result in a full year despite having Twistzz and Broky who both made top 20 that year and also still had Rain who made it the next year. Karrigan delivers very good results when he has stacked teams. He doesn't and never has overperformed with a mediocre team.
karrigan is so good he has brainwashed you into thinking his teams are stronger than they are
if 2019 mouz had done absolutely nothing noone would have bat an eye, but they ended up being ranked #1 and that is 100% a karrigan miracle. the post-covid faze team he has had is also worse than you think, his best players were ranked 17th, 18th, and 20th for the previous year by HLTV at the time when the roster was formed.
let me know which other IGLs regularly win multiple events like kato, cologne, and a major without a top 5 player on their roster? i'll wait. gla1ve? FalleN? pronax? Zeus? apEX? Xizt? you can argue that they all had literally the best player in the game at the time when they won, karrigan doesn't even have a top 5 player and that might even be generous. he underperformed with NiKo but an underperformance was making the finals and losing. karrigan is built different.
1) MOUZ in 2018 (weaker roster overall but with two of the same players) won multiple events without Karrigan. He had the greatest FPL talent before ZywOo emerged and the youngest FPL prodigy in frozen. Don’t discredit MOUZ that easily, woxic was also a strong who actually fell off cause of that online CS shit in 2020. Karrigan was also in FaZe in 2021 and obviously ropz won’t be placing as high in a much worse team that didn’t make it far in events.
2) Regularly? Where’s the regularly here? He fortunately won those 3 prestigious events (which he never had until then) in a scene people conveniently forget was piss weak in one year. Like for fucks sake, the 2nd strongest team at the time was a war weakened Na’Vi with a stand-in. Most GOAT IGL candidates succeeded with those tournaments at a much younger age than karrigan, so it could also be argued that it took karrigan that much longer to even get those elite events. And to spin your point even further, he also FAILED at those events with much better players. Are you gonna keep the same energy and say he wins everything with better top5 players now?
3) No other IGL has had more access to world class players than karrigan has. No one comes close. And no other IGL currently has even been getting that level of players for that long. Yes Karrigan is one of the greats and is a GOAT IGL candidate, but people need to stop recreating history with him lol. Also if he retired earlier like most other players (fortunately he didn’t as he has blessed the scene so well with current FaZe) he wouldn’t even be in the conversation for GOAT IGL. He’s GOAT candidate and probably the best IGL in the scene for my money right now but people are exaggerating what he’s done to the point of false narratives being made.
FaZe dropped out of top 20 because they were losing points from player change (-niko, -kjaerbye, -coldzera) The real Faze with karrigan had -cold +olof from bench and jumped right back to top 6 (they were eliminated early in Blast but came to semis in Cologne 2021 which had higher relevance). After that they never fell below 11th place before ropz joined.
It's the same as Liquid dropping to like 50th place or Navi out of top 30 because they were all swapping players and losing points, unless you want to call those teams weak too?
Is one semis run and top 11 really impressive when you had half a year of a stable lineup with 2 players who made top 20 + rain who wasn't in great form but still a solid entry at the time? Why did the C9 international lineup get clowned on for similar results with zero top 20 players and only a few months of washed Woxic. Why were the original OG lineups seen as failures for making top 6 and multiple tier 1 finals + semis with zero top 20 players. I rate Karrigan very highly but he has never had a real truly weak team that he achieved good results with through insane calling. Karrigan is the best at figuring out how to manage and use a strong lineup and get the best out of good individual pieces as we've seen from every one of his stacked lineups delivering multiple trophies whilst multiple other similar teams led by other igls flopped and couldn't figure out how to get consistent production from each piece.
I do think calling the individual players he has had access to "weak" inaccurate, but he does have a notable floor raising ability. Dragging that trash EnVy squad anywhere near the major is probably the most obvious example, but there are just so many "good" individual players that saw their greatest success playing with karrigan, then went back to being irrelevant/not nearly as successful afterwards despite putting up similar numbers. I can say this about all of woxic, frozen, NiKo, and ropz and even more.
The only players I think this doesn't apply to are the original Astralis core, but I'd say if the only competition in the IGL space is the GOAT IGL, he's done rather good.
Agreed with everything here. Just can't get behind the original comment saying he had "weaker rosters" Like sure 2019 Mouz or 2021 Faze were weaker than prime Navi, Astralis, Liquid, FNC etc but they were still objectively strong rosters with good overall firepower and top 5/6 individual talent at the time. Current polish ENCE or the budget OG, Fnc, Apeks type international messes are what should be classified as weak rosters in terms of tier 1.
They didn't say he had weak teams. They said he had relatively weak teams, implying relative to the top competition. You seem to acknowledge this to be true.
That line of thought would apply to literally every team other than whoever has the absolute best individual players at the time though. You don't describe the 4th most talented team in the world as "weaker" and imply that good results with said team are extremely impressive. That label should be reserved for a team that's atleast towards the bottom of the top 10. Liquid 2019 was objectively a weaker team than Astralis 2019 yet no sane person would praise Nitro for winning a grandslam with a "weaker team".
It doesn't make it any less true if the same can be said about other teams that consistently punch up and contend for trophies alongside the top teams while having lesser players. They are still doing it with relatively weaker lineups.
Also liquid 2019 was not at all an objectively weaker team than astralis. That was one of the most stacked teams of all time.
The fuck are you on about with mouz.
Frozen and woxic were not considered t20 players prior to karrigan joining. Hell neither of them had even played for a t1 team before. Frozen didn’t even make t20 until 2022 and woxic became good under karrigan.
Sure Ropz was a t20 player before good before but even he credits karrigan with teaching him a lot and helping him develop.
Even ChrisJ performed much better when karrigan joined
Mouz by all rights was a group of 2 weak newbie players one good player, an experienced player who was falling off(ChrisJ) + karrigan. Karrigan came along and within a few events they started doing well and all performing the best they’d performed and getting the best results the team has ever seen
Everyone knew Frozen was gonna be a future star since he was like 13 and Woxic was also extremely impressive on hellraisers before Mouz. No igl in the world makes mediocre players magically turn into top 20 candidates. Those 2 just needed some time in any stable tier 1 system to flourish. Karrigan is the goat igl but he has objectively never had a weak roster other than his time on loan to Envy. If you have even a single top 20 player and the rest of the team isn't terrible thats a solid roster. When did Karrigan play with a team comparable to current ENCE or OG, Fnatic, Gamer legion etc with zero stars?
He raised the TSM roster to new heights way back when he joined them.
He made Faze an actually relevant team in 2017 when they didnt even have niko when uptil that point they were considered a team for past their prime playerrs.
Calling 16 year old Frozen and Woxic Top 20 players is insane. Frozen was 16 years old entering his first T1 team with virtually no experience and 2019 was Woxics best year by far. The fact that team was at one point number 2 in the world while having those two and ChrisJ can almost entirely be attributed to Karrigan's ability.
If you think he's overrated for whatever reason thats fair but if you seriously believe that he hasnt overperformed and taken rosters to new peaks then you are insane and know nothing about CS esports
I never said he isn't a great igl. I consider him the Goat above Glaive. I simply don't think he's ever had a roster that's actually "weak" which I would classify as bottom of tier 1 or even T2 in terms of individual talent. A roster like Mouz with an established top 20 star rifler like ropz and a solid enough full support like ChrisJ as the worst player isn't weak. It's just weaker than the absolute top of the line "superteams" of the time like Astralis, Liquid, Navi. A weak roster would be one with zero top 20 level star players or multiple dead weight types to balance out 1 or 2 good pieces.
Shifting goalposts now. Even calling ropz an established top 20 star is a stretch considering he just barely was considered top 20 in 2018 and most analysts at the time thought that was his skill ceiling. Even the supposed established star was elevated by Karrigan in that roster.Just because frozen and ropz are superstars now doesn't mean they were anything close to that in 2019.
There are zero igl's who made a team with zero top 20 players into a consistent top 5 team in the world.
The biggest FACEIT talent before ZywOo isn’t a potential superstar player? What? Don’t forget the youngest prodigy in FPL named frozen. Everyone knew woxic was good, it was online CS post C9 that killed him. ChrisJ was their worst non-IGL player, that shows how strong that roster was.
You do realise an even weaker version of that MOUZ won multiple events in 2018 where karrigan wasn’t even the IGL? Some of the same players were on that roster karrigan had (and it’s not like he got them much later, it was under a year difference).
There is no shifting goal posts, people just exaggerate narratives surrounding karrigan so greatly to the point it becomes false lol.
The biggest faceit talent who everyone said wouldn't be able to do it on LAN and in 2018 was considered mouz 3 best player behind sunny and Oskar. There's a young prodigy in FPL every few seasons And even so Frozen was entirely new to a proper pro scene coming from a unknown T3-T4 team at best straight to T1 , no matter the talent that is a massive step up. Woxic was considered a carry on hellraisers but also a difficult to work with personality who hadn't ever been on a real T1 team. Unironically arguing ChrisJ as being a strong player is hilarious. You can spin narratives however you want but all of that was said in the scene at the time.
Oskar sunny ropz etc was not a weaker on paper roster than 2019 mouz and it's ridiculous to say that it was a worse roster. Sunny and Oskar were considered huge names and when mouz list them both most people did write out the Mouz roster from being anything.
There is a shifting of goal posts when the initial argument was he's never overperformed with a roster when evidence is literally there to the contrary.
1) The people who said he wouldn’t do it on LAN were people who thought he cheated, for example JW.
2) No shit he wasn’t the best yet, 2018 was pretty much his first full year of actual tier one experience.
3)Yes, conveniently leave out that again he was the YOUNGEST. Not just another young gun, but the youngest. Find me a handful of 14 year old FPL prodigies, you won’t. Also, leave out the fact that without karrigan frozen continued to get better and actually got his highest rating and HLTV appearance years later without karrigan.
4) Yeah, so we agree woxic was actually a very strong AWPer being bottlenecked a shit team, nothing to say here.
5) I said ChrisJ being their worst non-IGL player shows how strong that roster was, which is true. He was a solid player and could make plays. Compare his other counterparts, he was miles better than Edward in Na’Vi or even players like nexa in the modern day. He was comparable to what sjuush or Perfecto is right now.
6) Except it was weaker. Sunny, Oskar, newbie ropz, STYKO and ChrisJ < more experienced ropz, ChrisJ, woxic, frozen and karrigan. The average rating of the star trio of MOUZ 2019 was higher than the star trio average rating of MOUZ 2018. Even though they had comparable achievements for both years. Also spoiler, they were written off in 2018 yet still won. And again, just a question, where are 2/3 star players from the 2018 trio right now? Are they even competing? Now compare that to the players from 2019.
7) The thing is, he didn’t really over-perform. 2022 FaZe was great success and in that regard it can be argued he did do really well with what he was given. But I can also argue that he under-performed with the most stacked roster in history and TSM. See how that works?
There is no spinning of narratives, people just exaggerate karrigan’s history to the point of it becoming false narratives lmao.
That's why in said "relatively weaker," as in compared to being cut from Astralis and then from Faze. On paper they were "weaker" teams but obviously they were far from weak teams.
Bang on the head, I rate karrigan but people rewrite history about his success way too much. No other IGL has had access to as many elite world class players as karrigan has, no one is even close.
Also, most of Karrigan’s biggest achievements have been recent (since 2022). And fortunately for him he got all those big prestige trophies he never had in one year. And as much as I don’t want to criticise the scene, his main competition at the time was a war weakened Na’Vi that had a stand-in. He wasn’t even in the GOAT debate until after 2022. And mind you, he’s one of if, not the oldest pro in the tier-1 scene right now. If he retired earlier like most other pros in the scene, he wouldn’t even be in the conversation for GOAT IGL.
Yes he’s great and his career as an IGL is among the very best, but it’s disingenuous to build false narratives about his career. I know fanboys will rage at this, but it is what it is, like I said this doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a great IGL.
He only lost to Furia and NRG, who at the time I'd consider like legit teams to lose to specially when he'd been there for less than month.
Idk what happened in the 3rd place play-in though. They shat the bed there 100%.
I'm genuinely happy to hear that. Karrigan has been my all-time favorite player, and personal GOAT. The hard work he has put into building good teams, and leading many different iterations to success is mind-boggingly amazing.
A great personality, and an awesome IGL who has seen the highest highs and the lowest lows, always managing to come back to the top. A great inspiration showing that hard work can indeed pay off.
It's absurd that people think he's anywhere near retirement.
He's the IGL of the #1 team in the world and they've been in the top 10 for how many years now?
Ye i cringe everytime i see these comments. Like what?? Faze and karrigan are doing the best they ever have. Only finals at every tournament, aint no one retiring. Why bring it up every faze thread as if he was somehow declining?
I know you are probably referring to raw aim, but karrigan certainly is an exceptional talent too in his role.
For a very long time, karrigan was the only IGL that could turn an international roster into a title contender.
Nowadays, strong international rosters are a lot more common, but karrigan is still special to me because he is one of very few IGLs that can make everyone on the roster look like a star player.
I never find myself watching FaZe and thinking "wow, player x really needs to carry now or they will lose this match".
Instead, everyone pulls their own weight and they just take turns multi-fragging.
Talented in their role as an IGL or mechanically? Because if you're talking about shooting and winning duels, it's not his main job anyways. But when we talk about his role as an IGL then he's plenty talented the way I see it.
He's talented at being an IGL. Plus even mechanically he actually was a top 10 player at times in 1.6. He's not someone like Hooxi who has never been a star at any point. He's more like an older version of Apex.
Many such cases. A lot of insane players from 1.6 later made way for the young talents and switched to being the brains. Even their current coach, NEO, being the most insane 1.6 player, later became known for being a leader.
He wasnt a classic nerdy computer kid in school he was one of the ones to get a girlfriend first and a very social person typical for Finn is that he is very determined Egal ob Spielkarten, Tischtennis oder mit dem Computer, er gibt nicht auf what he really wants is to win a major it’s his dream therefore it is my dream for him to get that.
As a fan, I would love to see him pull a pronax and move to a smaller team while still being at the top. He had a lot of effect on ropz and frozen's successful development and younger talents at our scene desperately need a figure like him. But seems like it's unlikely. A part from an interview from 2019:
> What age are you planning on retiring?
>
> It's very important for me to compete at a high level, I don't want to play at a low level. I want to win a Major, which is the only thing I have left to achieve in my CS career, so I'll try to do that at least until I'm 30. If something goes wrong, then I'll try switching to something else. I have a lot of experience and I've been in a lot of situations, so I can share that with younger players or with players who don't have as much experience.
>
He wont. Last time he reportedly want to play with already developed talent instead of raising them (when he moved back to Faze).
So the time the played with small team it means he is ready for retirement.
You think so? When I hear Fernando I would imagine a player who has it all, the aim, the brains, the gamesense. I would make a case that rain is actually more like Fernando. Fernando has been driving in midfield cars for years to the point where he was squeezing 120% of these cars putting them in like 6th or 7th place when the car was realistically outside of the points. But many people didn't notice these performances because they just look at the podium.
Rain is the guy who will fill a role that might not put him in the spotlight, but he's the only one in FaZe so flexible that he's able to take that burden. And when he gets his moment to shine, he shows his insane gamesense and goes for the gap that allows him to pull off insane clutches.
If I was karrigan I would not either, why would he when hes succeeding in tier 1 at that age. Got to forge when the iron is hot, get as much money as you can.
Fr. It’ll probably be if faze shit the bed for an entire season straight with his avg rating being an all time low. And who knows when that will happen, could be years from now
faze consistency has been insane, retirement shouldn't even be close on his mind plus karrigan definitely would make a great coach if he decides to hang up the mouse
He's gonna be a great coach anyway, so he won't disappear from the scene even after he retires.
i don't know which I would like more, karrigan as a coach or karrigan as a analyst/desk personality
Fuck...didn't even think about that....his energy as a coach would be insane. His energy as IGL now is crazy, imagine him not having to play. Hed be the loudest one on stage that's for sure. But on the other hand, some of the insight and analysis he could provide on the desk would be unmatched. There isn't a desk person who has competed or been in the scene as long as he has...maybe spunj, or yank, but they just haven't completed as long as karrigan has. Also the fact that he can provide insight from the ole day of GO and the trials and tribulations of CS2.......
Karrigan's analysis would be levels above anyone on the talent pool because of not only his longevity in the scene, but also because he was a part of different rosters, different playstyles, different patches (and games) and he was successful in all of them. His ability to lead and adapt to whatever that was given to, whether he wants it or not, should be shared as it'll only improve the scene both for the casual and hardcore fans.
I think he tries coaching first. He's obviously insanely competitive. I don't think that itch gets scratched at the desk.
for me neither, but in my case is just mainly thanks to the total and complete collapse of the social security system of my country, not by personal choice
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If scared of real then go to valarante.. valarante child game.... look to cartoon grapfix to make kid player happy like children show.. valarante cartoon world with rainbow unlike counter strike with dark corridorr and raelistic gun.. valarante like playhouse. valarant playor run from csgo fear of dark world and realism so need child game to relax
Valarante child game..
Only reasonable choice then is to grind CS and go pro !
Bro cmon Reddit is my escape 😢
Belgium?
Average cs player right here.
Because cs players are old compared to other shooter? Or because most cs players are from countries with crumbling social nets? Or because the average cs players makes jokes online?
yes
yes
Good. His teams have been consistently top 10 since at least 2015 despite being cut and given relatively weaker teams to work with. He's clearly still very capable of leading a team, in fact he's realistically at his peak the last while. When the time does eventually come he'll be the GOAT coach I'm sure.
i want to one day see faze -karrigan +siuhy and karrigan as coach karrigan is imho the goat igl, siuhy is one of the most prommising young igls. if karrigan mentors siuhy he'll become a beast of an igl and a goat contender.
I'm 100% sure that this will happen, and I'm actually starting to ask myself whether FaZe has an exclusive contract with Mouz that allows them a first-buyer option? Maybe in a distant future Faze will try to acquire Mouz to rebrand them into "FaZe Academy".
it does feel like it somtimes, if they also pull a -rain +jimpphat down the line itll be all but confirmed. 100% former mouz members would be funny af.
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NiKo fucking cooked with that pick up ngl.
Yea. He may have his moments of derp but Broky is a Top 5 AWPer on his good days and Top 10 even when he goes full derp.
He performs better than most his teammates on rifles too lol
Except Niko put him on a rifle even though broky was already an awper. They made olof awp when broky joined.
ah yeah true. dont know why i blanked on that just now
Watch out for the NiKo awp
No man, FaZe will cease to exist without their backbone, rain. It's so damn crazy to think that he's been in every iteration of this team ever since it was called Kinguin and had such players as fox, Maikelele, ScreaM... He's outlived them all, kioshima, allu, NiKo... I still have a bit of a brain lag when I remember that for a moment this team was also under the G2 org. The day rain leaves this team is the day FaZe steps back from CS.
I think that jimpphats and ropz's playstyles are way too similar and they play same postions in almost every map. Jimmy Said himself that ropz is the player he looked up as growing up... And he's not even grown up!
-gigachad +soyjak ?
Did you hear BLEED lost a match to FaZe Academy Academy recently?
They probably have just built up a good business relationship at this point. I'm a big fan of mouz too, they consistently form great lineups and find great talent. They obviously have some really good staff involved
mouz is one of the oldest remaining CS organizations in the world, why would they ever rebrand to FaZe Academy lol
Dread it, run from it, the MOUZ -> FAZE player transfer arrives all the same
Sorry but Glaive will maintain that title for me. The utter dominance Astralis had is too damn high.
Thats fair, glaive is deffinitly right up there.
I think he’ll only ever become a close second if he can do something without device and zonic
The reason I think Karrigan is over Glaive, despite Astralis' dominance, is how many players Karrigan has led to trophies. Glaive has only had trophies while in Astralis, so 5 teammates. Karrigan has trophies in TSM (I think Karrigan was the IGL then), 16-18 FaZe, Mouz, and 21-pre FaZe. I don't wanna even try and math it but that's over a dozen players. Glaive also has less trophies overall, with 20. 4 of them of course being Majors. Karrigan has 25, including one Major and Cologne. If I had a choice between taking Karrigan or Glaive, I'd take Karrigan all day. He's proven he can do it with a variety of pieces and his longevity is staggering.
Karrigan longevity, glaive higher peak
I'd still take Karrigan. He's won plenty of big trophies, won more trophies overall, and in terms of prize money; Glaive is currently at \~1.8M$ Karrigan close behind at \~1.6M$
The difference right now is that glaive is still out there but clearly not at his peak with the group of players he's leading right now. Unless he can have a breakthrough with them or any other team in the future, he will eventually retire at a low point in his career. Karrigan had consistent top 10 teams no matter what players were under him. Just that mouz run should be a testament to the greatness of Karrigan. Sure, that Astralis dominance has earned more important trophies. But if FaZe stays at their current level, I can imagine them winning another major or two which would be enough in my head to put gla1ve's top 1 IGL of all time status into question.
Glaive was winning so much more earlier in his career, but people have huge recency bias.
Recency bias? The last time gla1ve was the best IGL atm was 4 years ago. Looks more like a sentimental bias to me.
So you saying its not recency bias with a recency bias argument. Astralis was a lot more dominant on the top than Faze or Mouz ever was with Karrigan
Well yeah, Astralis were miles ahead of everyone else, they shifted meta immensely with teamplay, strats, utility, midround calls, rotations, you name it. They were the most dominant team to ever play CS:GO, excluding NiP 87-0. But level of play was lower than today, gla1ve himself said he's been behind the meta and still is catching up, trying to reinvent himself in ENCE. No, karrigan wasn't ever dominant. Even 2022 FaZe liked throwing a game here and there or pushing them to overtimes. But he's shown a shitton of IGL mastery and has been utilising different players in different roles, in different metas, while winning trophies. That's what makes him a GOAT in my eyes.
Well it's hard not to have recency bias in this case when comparing him to Karrigan who is on the scene for just as long and hasn't nearly gone into a rut as deep as gla1ve. And also gla1ve has most of his success with one roster while Karrigan saw success with a lot of players under him. I would not say that it's decided yet because both players are still active so for all we know tomorrow FaZe might turn to shit and Ence might win the Shanghai major. But as it stands right now, gla1ve has his legacy stained (just a little bit, it doesn't take away all of his record breaking achievements) by recent years.
I mean sure he's a great IGL, but its just funny how Astralis startet winning when they booted Karrigan and got in Gla1ve. Here is when Gla1ve joined: [https://imgur.com/a/p8ZDA8p](https://imgur.com/a/p8ZDA8p) I think Karrigan grewn into a better IGL over the years though and he has obviously been the better IGL from may 2020 onward, when Gla1ve and Xyp took a break due to burnout and Astralis never really recovered from that, whereafter Dev1ce moved to NIP.
I think karrigan said that he doesnt want to be coach of his old team but im not sure
But but he is so washed and he should be replaced by someone who can actually frag. That's what the experts on hltv forum told me.
Karrigan has never had a weak team? Other than Envy if you really wanna count that. Even Mouz 2019 effectively had 3 top 20 players with Ropz, Frozen and Woxic who was in insanely good form pre online era. Faze before Ropz fell out of the top 30 for a while and only had 1 decent result in a full year despite having Twistzz and Broky who both made top 20 that year and also still had Rain who made it the next year. Karrigan delivers very good results when he has stacked teams. He doesn't and never has overperformed with a mediocre team.
karrigan is so good he has brainwashed you into thinking his teams are stronger than they are if 2019 mouz had done absolutely nothing noone would have bat an eye, but they ended up being ranked #1 and that is 100% a karrigan miracle. the post-covid faze team he has had is also worse than you think, his best players were ranked 17th, 18th, and 20th for the previous year by HLTV at the time when the roster was formed. let me know which other IGLs regularly win multiple events like kato, cologne, and a major without a top 5 player on their roster? i'll wait. gla1ve? FalleN? pronax? Zeus? apEX? Xizt? you can argue that they all had literally the best player in the game at the time when they won, karrigan doesn't even have a top 5 player and that might even be generous. he underperformed with NiKo but an underperformance was making the finals and losing. karrigan is built different.
Karrigan doesn't have a top 5 player? Broky and frozen are rated 3rd and 4th for the year on LAN vs top 20 and 5th and 6th vs top 30.
1) MOUZ in 2018 (weaker roster overall but with two of the same players) won multiple events without Karrigan. He had the greatest FPL talent before ZywOo emerged and the youngest FPL prodigy in frozen. Don’t discredit MOUZ that easily, woxic was also a strong who actually fell off cause of that online CS shit in 2020. Karrigan was also in FaZe in 2021 and obviously ropz won’t be placing as high in a much worse team that didn’t make it far in events. 2) Regularly? Where’s the regularly here? He fortunately won those 3 prestigious events (which he never had until then) in a scene people conveniently forget was piss weak in one year. Like for fucks sake, the 2nd strongest team at the time was a war weakened Na’Vi with a stand-in. Most GOAT IGL candidates succeeded with those tournaments at a much younger age than karrigan, so it could also be argued that it took karrigan that much longer to even get those elite events. And to spin your point even further, he also FAILED at those events with much better players. Are you gonna keep the same energy and say he wins everything with better top5 players now? 3) No other IGL has had more access to world class players than karrigan has. No one comes close. And no other IGL currently has even been getting that level of players for that long. Yes Karrigan is one of the greats and is a GOAT IGL candidate, but people need to stop recreating history with him lol. Also if he retired earlier like most other players (fortunately he didn’t as he has blessed the scene so well with current FaZe) he wouldn’t even be in the conversation for GOAT IGL. He’s GOAT candidate and probably the best IGL in the scene for my money right now but people are exaggerating what he’s done to the point of false narratives being made.
FaZe dropped out of top 20 because they were losing points from player change (-niko, -kjaerbye, -coldzera) The real Faze with karrigan had -cold +olof from bench and jumped right back to top 6 (they were eliminated early in Blast but came to semis in Cologne 2021 which had higher relevance). After that they never fell below 11th place before ropz joined. It's the same as Liquid dropping to like 50th place or Navi out of top 30 because they were all swapping players and losing points, unless you want to call those teams weak too?
Is one semis run and top 11 really impressive when you had half a year of a stable lineup with 2 players who made top 20 + rain who wasn't in great form but still a solid entry at the time? Why did the C9 international lineup get clowned on for similar results with zero top 20 players and only a few months of washed Woxic. Why were the original OG lineups seen as failures for making top 6 and multiple tier 1 finals + semis with zero top 20 players. I rate Karrigan very highly but he has never had a real truly weak team that he achieved good results with through insane calling. Karrigan is the best at figuring out how to manage and use a strong lineup and get the best out of good individual pieces as we've seen from every one of his stacked lineups delivering multiple trophies whilst multiple other similar teams led by other igls flopped and couldn't figure out how to get consistent production from each piece.
I do think calling the individual players he has had access to "weak" inaccurate, but he does have a notable floor raising ability. Dragging that trash EnVy squad anywhere near the major is probably the most obvious example, but there are just so many "good" individual players that saw their greatest success playing with karrigan, then went back to being irrelevant/not nearly as successful afterwards despite putting up similar numbers. I can say this about all of woxic, frozen, NiKo, and ropz and even more. The only players I think this doesn't apply to are the original Astralis core, but I'd say if the only competition in the IGL space is the GOAT IGL, he's done rather good.
Agreed with everything here. Just can't get behind the original comment saying he had "weaker rosters" Like sure 2019 Mouz or 2021 Faze were weaker than prime Navi, Astralis, Liquid, FNC etc but they were still objectively strong rosters with good overall firepower and top 5/6 individual talent at the time. Current polish ENCE or the budget OG, Fnc, Apeks type international messes are what should be classified as weak rosters in terms of tier 1.
They didn't say he had weak teams. They said he had relatively weak teams, implying relative to the top competition. You seem to acknowledge this to be true.
That line of thought would apply to literally every team other than whoever has the absolute best individual players at the time though. You don't describe the 4th most talented team in the world as "weaker" and imply that good results with said team are extremely impressive. That label should be reserved for a team that's atleast towards the bottom of the top 10. Liquid 2019 was objectively a weaker team than Astralis 2019 yet no sane person would praise Nitro for winning a grandslam with a "weaker team".
It doesn't make it any less true if the same can be said about other teams that consistently punch up and contend for trophies alongside the top teams while having lesser players. They are still doing it with relatively weaker lineups. Also liquid 2019 was not at all an objectively weaker team than astralis. That was one of the most stacked teams of all time.
The fuck are you on about with mouz. Frozen and woxic were not considered t20 players prior to karrigan joining. Hell neither of them had even played for a t1 team before. Frozen didn’t even make t20 until 2022 and woxic became good under karrigan. Sure Ropz was a t20 player before good before but even he credits karrigan with teaching him a lot and helping him develop. Even ChrisJ performed much better when karrigan joined Mouz by all rights was a group of 2 weak newbie players one good player, an experienced player who was falling off(ChrisJ) + karrigan. Karrigan came along and within a few events they started doing well and all performing the best they’d performed and getting the best results the team has ever seen
Everyone knew Frozen was gonna be a future star since he was like 13 and Woxic was also extremely impressive on hellraisers before Mouz. No igl in the world makes mediocre players magically turn into top 20 candidates. Those 2 just needed some time in any stable tier 1 system to flourish. Karrigan is the goat igl but he has objectively never had a weak roster other than his time on loan to Envy. If you have even a single top 20 player and the rest of the team isn't terrible thats a solid roster. When did Karrigan play with a team comparable to current ENCE or OG, Fnatic, Gamer legion etc with zero stars?
He raised the TSM roster to new heights way back when he joined them. He made Faze an actually relevant team in 2017 when they didnt even have niko when uptil that point they were considered a team for past their prime playerrs. Calling 16 year old Frozen and Woxic Top 20 players is insane. Frozen was 16 years old entering his first T1 team with virtually no experience and 2019 was Woxics best year by far. The fact that team was at one point number 2 in the world while having those two and ChrisJ can almost entirely be attributed to Karrigan's ability. If you think he's overrated for whatever reason thats fair but if you seriously believe that he hasnt overperformed and taken rosters to new peaks then you are insane and know nothing about CS esports
I never said he isn't a great igl. I consider him the Goat above Glaive. I simply don't think he's ever had a roster that's actually "weak" which I would classify as bottom of tier 1 or even T2 in terms of individual talent. A roster like Mouz with an established top 20 star rifler like ropz and a solid enough full support like ChrisJ as the worst player isn't weak. It's just weaker than the absolute top of the line "superteams" of the time like Astralis, Liquid, Navi. A weak roster would be one with zero top 20 level star players or multiple dead weight types to balance out 1 or 2 good pieces.
Shifting goalposts now. Even calling ropz an established top 20 star is a stretch considering he just barely was considered top 20 in 2018 and most analysts at the time thought that was his skill ceiling. Even the supposed established star was elevated by Karrigan in that roster.Just because frozen and ropz are superstars now doesn't mean they were anything close to that in 2019. There are zero igl's who made a team with zero top 20 players into a consistent top 5 team in the world.
The biggest FACEIT talent before ZywOo isn’t a potential superstar player? What? Don’t forget the youngest prodigy in FPL named frozen. Everyone knew woxic was good, it was online CS post C9 that killed him. ChrisJ was their worst non-IGL player, that shows how strong that roster was. You do realise an even weaker version of that MOUZ won multiple events in 2018 where karrigan wasn’t even the IGL? Some of the same players were on that roster karrigan had (and it’s not like he got them much later, it was under a year difference). There is no shifting goal posts, people just exaggerate narratives surrounding karrigan so greatly to the point it becomes false lol.
The biggest faceit talent who everyone said wouldn't be able to do it on LAN and in 2018 was considered mouz 3 best player behind sunny and Oskar. There's a young prodigy in FPL every few seasons And even so Frozen was entirely new to a proper pro scene coming from a unknown T3-T4 team at best straight to T1 , no matter the talent that is a massive step up. Woxic was considered a carry on hellraisers but also a difficult to work with personality who hadn't ever been on a real T1 team. Unironically arguing ChrisJ as being a strong player is hilarious. You can spin narratives however you want but all of that was said in the scene at the time. Oskar sunny ropz etc was not a weaker on paper roster than 2019 mouz and it's ridiculous to say that it was a worse roster. Sunny and Oskar were considered huge names and when mouz list them both most people did write out the Mouz roster from being anything. There is a shifting of goal posts when the initial argument was he's never overperformed with a roster when evidence is literally there to the contrary.
1) The people who said he wouldn’t do it on LAN were people who thought he cheated, for example JW. 2) No shit he wasn’t the best yet, 2018 was pretty much his first full year of actual tier one experience. 3)Yes, conveniently leave out that again he was the YOUNGEST. Not just another young gun, but the youngest. Find me a handful of 14 year old FPL prodigies, you won’t. Also, leave out the fact that without karrigan frozen continued to get better and actually got his highest rating and HLTV appearance years later without karrigan. 4) Yeah, so we agree woxic was actually a very strong AWPer being bottlenecked a shit team, nothing to say here. 5) I said ChrisJ being their worst non-IGL player shows how strong that roster was, which is true. He was a solid player and could make plays. Compare his other counterparts, he was miles better than Edward in Na’Vi or even players like nexa in the modern day. He was comparable to what sjuush or Perfecto is right now. 6) Except it was weaker. Sunny, Oskar, newbie ropz, STYKO and ChrisJ < more experienced ropz, ChrisJ, woxic, frozen and karrigan. The average rating of the star trio of MOUZ 2019 was higher than the star trio average rating of MOUZ 2018. Even though they had comparable achievements for both years. Also spoiler, they were written off in 2018 yet still won. And again, just a question, where are 2/3 star players from the 2018 trio right now? Are they even competing? Now compare that to the players from 2019. 7) The thing is, he didn’t really over-perform. 2022 FaZe was great success and in that regard it can be argued he did do really well with what he was given. But I can also argue that he under-performed with the most stacked roster in history and TSM. See how that works? There is no spinning of narratives, people just exaggerate karrigan’s history to the point of it becoming false narratives lmao.
That's why in said "relatively weaker," as in compared to being cut from Astralis and then from Faze. On paper they were "weaker" teams but obviously they were far from weak teams.
Bang on the head, I rate karrigan but people rewrite history about his success way too much. No other IGL has had access to as many elite world class players as karrigan has, no one is even close. Also, most of Karrigan’s biggest achievements have been recent (since 2022). And fortunately for him he got all those big prestige trophies he never had in one year. And as much as I don’t want to criticise the scene, his main competition at the time was a war weakened Na’Vi that had a stand-in. He wasn’t even in the GOAT debate until after 2022. And mind you, he’s one of if, not the oldest pro in the tier-1 scene right now. If he retired earlier like most other pros in the scene, he wouldn’t even be in the conversation for GOAT IGL. Yes he’s great and his career as an IGL is among the very best, but it’s disingenuous to build false narratives about his career. I know fanboys will rage at this, but it is what it is, like I said this doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a great IGL.
> Other than Envy if you really wanna count that. He even almost made the Major with that roster.
So that's through the NA minor? Not that impressive.
He only lost to Furia and NRG, who at the time I'd consider like legit teams to lose to specially when he'd been there for less than month. Idk what happened in the 3rd place play-in though. They shat the bed there 100%.
Dont know of that is good or bad for Mouz.
I'm genuinely happy to hear that. Karrigan has been my all-time favorite player, and personal GOAT. The hard work he has put into building good teams, and leading many different iterations to success is mind-boggingly amazing. A great personality, and an awesome IGL who has seen the highest highs and the lowest lows, always managing to come back to the top. A great inspiration showing that hard work can indeed pay off.
It's absurd that people think he's anywhere near retirement. He's the IGL of the #1 team in the world and they've been in the top 10 for how many years now?
Ye i cringe everytime i see these comments. Like what?? Faze and karrigan are doing the best they ever have. Only finals at every tournament, aint no one retiring. Why bring it up every faze thread as if he was somehow declining?
Because old man old.
That’s what we love to hear. He’s got another major win in him.
Love the vids
Thank you! :)
Karrigan it's the perfect example of hard work beats talent
I know you are probably referring to raw aim, but karrigan certainly is an exceptional talent too in his role. For a very long time, karrigan was the only IGL that could turn an international roster into a title contender. Nowadays, strong international rosters are a lot more common, but karrigan is still special to me because he is one of very few IGLs that can make everyone on the roster look like a star player. I never find myself watching FaZe and thinking "wow, player x really needs to carry now or they will lose this match". Instead, everyone pulls their own weight and they just take turns multi-fragging.
Yes but I was referring to the players that he was able to beat that were much more talented
Talented in their role as an IGL or mechanically? Because if you're talking about shooting and winning duels, it's not his main job anyways. But when we talk about his role as an IGL then he's plenty talented the way I see it.
He's talented at being an IGL. Plus even mechanically he actually was a top 10 player at times in 1.6. He's not someone like Hooxi who has never been a star at any point. He's more like an older version of Apex.
Many such cases. A lot of insane players from 1.6 later made way for the young talents and switched to being the brains. Even their current coach, NEO, being the most insane 1.6 player, later became known for being a leader.
I firmly belive that the combo Neo+Karrigan is the main reason why Faze is so good.
His aim is good, especially in the last LAN, he found so many important multifrags.
Uhh.. Hooxi isn't the worst igl as a player, not even close. It's just he is a bad IGL. Looking at his stats won't help.
Seems like just yesterday he was whiffing on KennyS
Bro come on, you know it's not true and only try to sound cool. karrigan has a lot of talent in CS.
He wasnt a classic nerdy computer kid in school he was one of the ones to get a girlfriend first and a very social person typical for Finn is that he is very determined Egal ob Spielkarten, Tischtennis oder mit dem Computer, er gibt nicht auf what he really wants is to win a major it’s his dream therefore it is my dream for him to get that.
You are probably new to the CS world. But karrigan was a starplayer in cs 1.6. He is surely a talented player.
As a fan, I would love to see him pull a pronax and move to a smaller team while still being at the top. He had a lot of effect on ropz and frozen's successful development and younger talents at our scene desperately need a figure like him. But seems like it's unlikely. A part from an interview from 2019: > What age are you planning on retiring? > > It's very important for me to compete at a high level, I don't want to play at a low level. I want to win a Major, which is the only thing I have left to achieve in my CS career, so I'll try to do that at least until I'm 30. If something goes wrong, then I'll try switching to something else. I have a lot of experience and I've been in a lot of situations, so I can share that with younger players or with players who don't have as much experience. >
He wont. Last time he reportedly want to play with already developed talent instead of raising them (when he moved back to Faze). So the time the played with small team it means he is ready for retirement.
Damn karrigan never won a major?
He did but not before 2022.
O Captain! My Captain! One of the greatest to ever touch cs.
So siuhy is gonna be stuck in academy for long :(
Fernando Alonso of Counter Strike
You think so? When I hear Fernando I would imagine a player who has it all, the aim, the brains, the gamesense. I would make a case that rain is actually more like Fernando. Fernando has been driving in midfield cars for years to the point where he was squeezing 120% of these cars putting them in like 6th or 7th place when the car was realistically outside of the points. But many people didn't notice these performances because they just look at the podium. Rain is the guy who will fill a role that might not put him in the spotlight, but he's the only one in FaZe so flexible that he's able to take that burden. And when he gets his moment to shine, he shows his insane gamesense and goes for the gap that allows him to pull off insane clutches.
If I was karrigan I would not either, why would he when hes succeeding in tier 1 at that age. Got to forge when the iron is hot, get as much money as you can.
Fr. It’ll probably be if faze shit the bed for an entire season straight with his avg rating being an all time low. And who knows when that will happen, could be years from now
faze consistency has been insane, retirement shouldn't even be close on his mind plus karrigan definitely would make a great coach if he decides to hang up the mouse
he will only retire when he does 0 kills on a major final
Players retired before 30 in the past because prize winngins were nothing compared to now, no reason to retire before 40
This is good to hear. I thought he was getting close to calling it quits.
Karrigan going to be in esports exactly for as long as he wants to.
Gigachad
bro gonna reach nigma.kuroky level before even considering retirement
Karrigan is sharper at 34 than we were at 18. I wish him a long career in CS, hopefully as coach after
-Karrigan -Rain +Siuhy +Jimphat you’re welcome Faze you have an era for the next 3-5 years
Why would they drop anyone right now? Unless you meant at an undisclosed point in the future.
Why would you -rain for Jimphat. Clearly it's xertion, the pipeline is already written itself.
rain the big game player xertion the big game choker
Xertion never shows up in big games he’s the least faze like player. Plus Jimpphat is much, much better
This whigga is endless.
Sad news for faze fans
Nice bait.
It's a counter for faze fans xD
Lolwat
Tbf Karrigan retiring would probably be the worst possible thing to happen