If I ask you to name the most seminal FaZe players, and try to guess your answers, I’d probably start with rain, maybe move on to karrigan, then NiKo, then olofmeister, Ropz, Twistzz or GuardiaN if I stretched my luck thin. Yet it would baffle me why broky wouldn’t make that list.
Over five years since NiKo plucked him from obscurity, broky was brought into a team that shaped his very identity. He wasn’t a superstar signing, quite the opposite actually. He was the shadow of the superstar signing, which was coldzera. He was just a raw talent thrown into the deep end, to find out how he fares. And he made it his home; outlasting expectations and outshining bigger names.
As time went on, stars changed, rosters shuffled, teammates became friends, friends became farewells, yet broky stayed the same, wearing the same colors. But now, for the first time in his five-year-tenure in FaZe, watching his own rise and fans cheering for him, broky is now watching the same fans growing louder against him. Low impact. Weak numbers. Dead weight. But is that truly his reckoning? Or does it go deeper? Let’s find out.
The decline in his performance is undeniable
broky has long been among the steadiest contributors for FaZe. In 2020, he was the highest rated player in FaZe, then in 2021, his average of 1.10 was second only to Twistzz’s 1.13. In 2022, he was again the highest rated player for his team even with Ropz and Twistzz joining the fray. In 2023, his 1.13 rating was breathing down Ropz’s neck at 1.17, but then hit a slump in the dying months of 2024, despite which broky still scraped together a 1.10 rating across the year.
The said “slump” for broky can be attributed to a lot of factors, including the weapon’s waning impact in the new game. But if his struggles are truly tied to this factor, the effect certainly had a delayed fuse. I say this because broky started 2024 with guns blazing. Stacking up EVPs at the Major, BLAST Premier Fall Final, and an MVP at IEM Chengdu, broky was crisp throughout the year. But it was after this period of IEM Rio 2024, that his output started to steadily decline.
When the BLAST Premier World Finals rolled around, broky’s numbers were 0.92, outweighing the lowest rating, karrigan’s 0.91, only by a feather. The slump deepened. He went down as the lowest rated FaZe player at the RMRs of Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, and then could only muster a mediocre 1.00 rating at the Major. The start of 2025 birthed a glimmer of hope as he scored a 1.15 rating at BLAST Bounty Season 1 2025, but that dream turned to dust quickly in the wake of abysmal performances at IEM Katowice 2025 and PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025.
Is broky being misused?
Is broky crumpling or is he simply being misused? The answer, quite simply, is both. broky isn’t being utilized properly, leaving him stranded in positions where he doesn’t quite know what to do. Recently, broky’s role has been a lot about throwing utility and carrying the C4, than being the trade-fragger, a role he excelled in. And it has come with a significant downside as he is kept out of action.
It’s true that broky has been missing a lot of shots recently, and his combat AWPing hasn’t been as sharp as we have seen it to be. But how many chances has he gotten recently? The change in roles to plug the gaping hole left by Ropz’s departure has changed the dynamic considerably in FaZe. I do agree that his slump started even while Ropz was there on the team, but the change has left him limping for opportunities far more.
On the CT sides, the AWP of broky has been used more to contribute towards anchoring a site which has made him far more predictable. Ropz’s ability to be left on his own devics while consuming limited resources meant a lot of freedom for other players. A very apparent and talked about example has been Anubis, where it was karrigan who tried to fill in as an A anchor. But a lot of the times, he would need the support of broky which has limited broky in many ways. And this has not been the story of their CT side alone.
broky has taken up more supportive roles
broky has never been an ultra-aggressive AWPer, or atleast has never positioned as one. karrigan has always used him as a punisher, posting him on angles to punish the mistakes made by the enemies. But that has changed now, due to a subtle change in roles that has driven a huge change in terms of his output.
The change in role I’m referring to is the added responsibility of providing support with utilities. I went through a lot of demos of broky, both recent and past iterations, and what stood out was that his freedom has been shackled far more tightly than before. This has clipped his wings in many ways, which I’ll break down now.
Take T-side Ancient for example. In the past, broky would be the one set up for success, supported into taking aggressive angles, like going for a deep A main peek and holding big box for the entire round and punish someone walking into the scope. Now, more often than not, he finds himself supporting players like EliGE in taking mid control, forcing his positioning to remain in the area before mid and A main. Instead of dictating the pace, he’s left occasionally checking for A main pushes so he can support the players out mid.
In other rounds with set executes, broky is now the last one in, carrying the C4 and throwing the final set of flashes and smokes. Compare that to earlier, when he was often the second one in. In some fast-paced executes, FaZe would have someone Twistzz hard-clearing angles, while broky would be right by his side, shifting through those angles while being scoped in to trade Twistzz. Now, he would often arrive too late to the crime scene, and despite his knack for clutches, the situation would be too dire to do anything.Another major downside is that the one supporting others rarely gets a helping hand himself. These days, even if broky decides to go for a pick, he’s often left out in the cold. He’s the one trying to help himself out, throwing self-flashes in desperation but we all know how effective that is in the current meta.
So what is the solution?
A lot of the noise has been about simply calling it the end of broky’s time in FaZe. But that’s not what I believe, and not out of some bias of being a broky fan. He has been an essential piece in FaZe , and it would not be in FaZe’s best interest to drop him right now for multiple reasons.
For one, they’ve already brought in a player who has shaken up the team’s dynamic. It wouldn’t make sense to remove another stable piece who has been a constant for so long. And with the Major not too far, it would hurt FaZe more than help. The obvious solution, then, is to pull him out of this slump. But how?
karrigan’s approach to snapping a player out of a rut has always been to push them out of their comfort zone, and I think that same magic could work for broky. Right now, the focus is on EliGE and getting him the space to take the fights he wants, but it needs to shift toward broky a bit more. FaZe already has enough aggressive players that karrigan can take a back seat during executes, focusing on utility and his signature lurky plays.
But a lot of the initiatives should come from broky as well. From the countless hours I have spent playing and watching the game, I have realized the game is more about confidence than it seems. broky has had some odd good maps and tournaments, meaning he hasn’t lost his knack. All he needs right now is to get the flow back and hold on to it.
