FaZe’s stand-in spark fizzles out at IEM Dallas

FaZe’s run at IEM Dallas 2025 has come to a tragic end today, and truly, it was tragic. It was an absolute mess, to be honest, and that’s me putting it mildly. So many mistakes were made round after round, which they couldn’t make up for even with the force buy wins. And it’s a real shame, really. FaZe was just one round short of the promised land, and we could’ve caught a glimpse of what the team would look like with rain back in the server before the Major. But I guess there won’t be a trailer; we’ll just have to wait for the big show.

Anyway, the performance was abysmal. After having a banger of a series against BC.Game yesterday, s1mple dropped all the way to the bottom of FaZe’s scoreboard today. Inconsistency was always going to be a concern, but today’s issues went well beyond the usual suspects. Let us take a look at them.

T-sides can’t keep saving FaZe

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I talked about FaZe’s problems and the CT side wasn’t the elephant in the room. The only difference between FaZe’s defense and that of a Level 10 random stack is… well, actually, I’m not sure there is one anymore. The team looked like five individuals fighting their own battles, and not enough cohesion. But with two new players and barely any practice, that’s to be expected.

On Anubis, FaZe often had to keep an extra player on A, leaving the B site extremely vulnerable, something Heroic gladly exploited. Then on Mirage, skullz was clearly struggling as the A anchor. FaZe tried multiple band-aid fixes, even pushing A Main at one point, but that just opened up mid and came back to bite them. And that, in a nutshell, was the story, plugging one hole just to spring a leak somewhere else. Now, how much of this will be solved with rain’s return is anyone’s guess. After all, these cracks existed even when he was in the lineup. But things are bound to get better with him back.

s1mple drops a 0.85 rating

s1mple didn’t see a lot of action today, and his poor rating might not be entirely on him. Yes, he missed a few shots here and there, but more often than not, he just drew the short end of the stick. His start on Mirage was disastrous following his opening six deaths, most of which came from being caught off guard or getting timing’d. Not much you can do about that.

To make matters worse, on most rounds where s1mple had the AWP, he ended up playing B. Maybe it was due to the gaps Heroic were exploiting and FaZe needing riflers around smokes, or maybe it was just a spawn thing. Either way, it didn’t do him any favors. But the question here is – Is s1mple cooling off? I will be very clear with my stance. I don’t believe that. There is going to be the problem of inconsistency with him, and one would expect EliGE or Frozen to step up when that’s the case. But once he starts firing, well, you saw how easy it becomes for FaZe. The next time we will be seeing him will be in the Major, and I hope the GOAT is hungry for the Big Apple.