FaZe have announced the long-awaited benching of suffering AWPer Helvijs ‘broky’ Saukants, replacing the Latvian with the unexpected signing of BIG Academy AWPer, Jason ‘JBOEN’ Boe Nielsen, on a six-month loan until the end of 2026.
The signing signals a new era for FaZe Clan in Counter-Strike. Long gone are the days of superteams and overwhelming firepower; FaZe are now a development project.
What is FaZe’s ambition? Are FaZe broke?
It has been well understood for some time that FaZe were not going to build a new superteam à la 2018 when they had Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač, Olof ‘Olofmeister’ Kajbjer, and Ladislav ‘Guardian’ Kovács in one roster.
As FaZe continued to struggle on the server in April, FaZe Clan General Manager Kaysan ‘Kaysan’ Ghasseminejad stated on his livestream, “We’re not Falcons. We don’t have unlimited money to go spend $10 million to do this or that, we don’t. But, we will still do our best to field a team that can win.”
Shortly after the former FaZe Media content creator protested the concept that FaZe were “broke,” stating, “Investors? We don’t need investors, we have money, we’re not broke. I don’t know what this narrative is. We’re not broke, but you just can’t compare us to Falcons.”
Certainly a reasonable comment. No team in the Counter-Strike space can compete financially with the Saudi organization, which has spent a reported $10 million across various iterations of its roster.
Following the StarLadder Budapest Major, the off-season saw almost no roster changes at the top level, allegedly due to inflated player prices, in part driven by the expectation of Falcons-style transfer fees for non-Falcons transfers.
In a sense, you could call FaZe the largest victims of that impasse. While many other rosters have wanted moves, FaZe have needed roster changes in this period, but the market has remained frozen, no pun intended.
It remains to be seen whether that transfer roadblock will be alleviated this off-season, but while all rosters are suffering from a lack of movement, there is little evidence to suggest that FaZe exists in the tier below Falcons, the teams that are willing to spend when it is possible. Or rather, they have not waited to see if there is a thaw, but are fully committed to a different path.
FaZe may not be “broke” by Kaysan’s definition, but they have shown no evidence that spending money on Counter-Strike acquisitions is on the cards for the organization, and that means a dramatic lowering of expectations for FaZe fans.
FaZe commit to a more frugal Counter-Strike pathway
The signing of JBOEN so early in the off-season is a sign that FaZe are committing to a different strategy, one that takes low financial investment for the potential of a big payoff in the future.
Alongside former ENCE and Sprout coach Niclas ‘enkay J’ Krumhorn, the picture for FaZe’s future seems to be leaning clearly towards taking time to develop players with low initial investment.
Best of all, considering the struggles of the roster, which saw them miss the IEM Cologne 2026 Major, FaZe may even experience an improvement in form in the immediate term despite the low investment.
broky’s form in particular was well below what we know the Latvian can achieve, regressing after his initially positive reintegration into the team in the Summer of 2025.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a more frugal approach. For one, it may prove far more financially sustainable than Galatico-style signings. Ultimately, in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the needs that dictate survival are paramount, and in esports, that means money.
In the unstable environment of esports, it’s impossible to be critical of an organization living within its means and making decisions for the future.
In the best-case scenario, FaZe may have their cake and eat it; develop a strong, young roster and not have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so.
The strategy could end up being the smart one, but that does not mean that they inherently get to keep David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský.
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frozen can win now; FaZe cannot
American sports often use the framework ‘win now’ or ‘win later’ to describe a team’s composition. Win now teams are teams with maximum investment to win at this moment, usually featuring stars at the peak of their powers; win later means putting resources into the future, developing talent, and investing in youth.
When frozen joined FaZe, he did so with the full expectation that FaZe were ready to win the second he stepped through the door. The rifler had left a MOUZ roster that had won a trophy only two months before he joined the roster, ESL Pro League Season 18.
The transition was meant to be from a team extremely close to the top, but unable to break through in the biggest tournaments of the year, to a team that could compete for the very biggest, most prestigious tournaments.
As of yet, frozen has only won one trophy with FaZe: IEM Chengdu 2024, losing three Major finals as well as Grand Finals at the BLAST World Finals 2024 and IEM Katowice 2024, all under Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen as IGL.
Even before karrigan’s departure, the organization was clearly going through a realignment in strategy and ambition, but that does not need to be true for frozen.
The Slovakian has consistently been, by far, the best performer in the roster, putting up world-class numbers regardless of the team’s overall form.
In its current composition, the best FaZe can expect is to be competitive in six months, perhaps longer if JBOEN acclimates to Tier 1, if FaZe can sign him after his loan stint, and if Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken proves himself as an IGL.
None of those things are a given. The majority of JBOEN’s experience is against Tier 3 competition online; he is completely unproven at this level or even close to it. Even if JBOEN proves himself, BIG may demand more money. Additionally, Twistzz’s Liquid stint as IGL was not exactly a huge success.
If we accept claims by French leaker and former pro, Sébastien ‘KRL’ Perez, then Ryan ‘Neityu’ Aubry will likely be added as a permanent piece to the roster.
Even in that case, on recent form, it is hard to imagine a world where FaZe keep Jakub ‘jcobbb’ Pietruszewski beyond the time needed to earn VRS points for FaZe’s new core.
Overall, while frozen walked into a team that was meant to be ready to win, he now sits in a team that may not be ready in the next six months, year, or potentially ever.
This roster is a huge step back competitively, even in reference to the MOUZ lineup he left in 2023, a consistently Top 4 roster in HLTV ratings at the time, and a plethora of ‘ifs’ need to be satisfied to get the roster even close to sniffing a trophy.
Put simply, frozen is in Win Now form; FaZe are not. In order to be where he wants to be, he must move to a roster that is ready to win like he is.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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