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casebattles2025-04-20 22:26:156

After defeating G2 and HellRaisers in the playoffs, FaZe advanced to grand finals of StarSeries Season 3. We talked to Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey to hear about playing against French teams, the veto against HellRaisers and their anti-eco struggles.

FaZe secured another grand final, their second in a row, and will be facing the winner of the Natus Vincere - Astralis match later today.

kioShiMa thinks that their anti-eco troubles are down to communication

In a chat with Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey, we found out that he would support G2 if his team would've lost to them and that FaZe feel better in matches where they are underdogs.

I'd like to play Astralis because of what happened in Katowice, we were so close to winning but we couldn't have it. So we can maybe get a revenge here.

Let's start with your match against G2 yesterday, there were a few interesting contrasts going in, like the 'super team' - 'super Kio', you playing against your ex-teammates and them having a full French roster while you have a fully international one. With all those things combined, was there any additional motivation going into that match?
It's always good to play against my own country, because of what happened in the past. Even if I accepted [what happened], I still enjoy when I win against the French teams. I mean, if they would've won I would be supporting them, it's just like, now I'm the only one from France here… so I'm glad.
I don't know about the 'super team' or whatever, I just think that in that team they have the best French player in every role, so they just have to make it work. When they make it work, they are going to be really, really good contenders.
In that match you won the first map, Inferno, and it was a lot about the banana control, you took that a lot. A lot of teams still struggle with the meta of the map, what is good to do, what is not, you are forcing banana a lot—what do you think is the main point that wins you the map, and won you that map against G2?
We just tried to play our game, we did what we wanted to kinda, we had nothing to lose. When we wanted to take banana we took it, if we wanted to push mid we pushed mid, if we wanted to push apps we pushed apps. We played two AWPs as well, it was really working. We saw G2 playing with two AWPs so we did the same, and actually it worked for us. A lot of the fight happened in banana and then when they have that they come back mid, so yeah, most of the teams fight for banana.
The second map was Nuke and there we saw bad anti-eco's costing you a lot in the end. Do you feel that in a way, the way you play as a team—explosive and individualistic, aim based a lot—do you think that is always going to lead to more losses on anti-eco rounds? Is there some sloppiness integrated in the team in a way?
The way we lost the anti-ecos on Nuke was more due to the communication being bad. Because the timings they had, they were not supposed to have them. We were not focused, I don't know, people were talking, talking, but not really listening.
We were sloppy in the communication, not the play we had, because we feel that we played really good on Nuke, it's just that we had sloppy rounds because of communication that broke… everything. That's the main thing.
Moving on to today, karrigan said that he didn't expect something in the veto, what did HellRaisers catch you off guard with?
We were actually surprised that they picked Mirage and let us pick Train, because that are actually our two best maps. So they just gave us our two best maps as the first two maps.
We were surprised, but then, as you know, we played the group stage with not that much motivation, I don't know why. Usually we play better when we play better teams, because of the motivation, we are underdogs, etc. We tried to keep the same motivation now, that we had against SK and G2, because you could tell the difference between the first map of the group stage and the last one and playoffs.
Both maps against HR were pretty close, especially considering you won both pistols on Mirage and started 5-0 on both sides, it ended 16-13 in the end. What was the problem on Mirage especially?
We started well by taking mid control and then we tried to change the pace of the game, go faster, do the 2-2 and split sites really fast. We tried to do something that just wasn't' working and we didn't come back to our original play style instantly. That is what cost us a lot of rounds.
We always felt that we had the control, we knew that we could do it, our CT side is much stronger than our T side so we knew it was possible to come back and win the game.
On Train, were there any scares in the end, they won 5 rounds in the row, almost got into overtime, how were you feeling in those last rounds? What was the call in the end?
We called some fast stuff in the end, we were outside, having the first kills all the time, but then one flash from a teammate, miscommunication, a flash is bad, we are blind and they kill us. It's just bad communication, that's what we are working on a lot, because that is the main thing in our team, miscommunication. That is what cost us all the last rounds kind of. We rushed outside two times and we are either getting flashed by a teammate or the communication failed us.
You are going into the grand finals and it's either Na`Vi or Astralis. Any preferences on who you'd like to play?
I'd like to play Astralis because of what happened in Katowice, we were so close to winning but we couldn't have it. So we can maybe get revenge here.