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The Estonian rifler is excited for the future in CS2.

FaZe have been on a downward spiral in recent months. They've exited IEM Rio, BLAST Spring Final, and IEM Cologne in the group stage, and Gamers8 wasn't much better. Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and company were eliminated in the first round of the single-elimination bracket there, and so they flew to Malta uncertain of what to expect.

Their group-stage victories against 9z and fnatic were enough to secure a playoff berth, but the European combine faltered when tested by MOUZ in the championship bracket.

ropz sat down with HLTV after FaZe's loss to share his thoughts on his team's early exit from the EPL playoffs, his career in CS:GO, and the community reaction to CS2.

Commiserations on the loss. First of all, did you expect more from this event?

We definitely expected more. I think we had good preparation. We did a bootcamp between the group stage and the playoffs here, so we spent another extra week in Malta trying to get the best result possible. I feel like we had a complete off-day individually, and things weren't going our way. Especially on Inferno. We lost some rounds that were nearly impossible to lose and they just found the right decision every time in terms of how they played.

The overall feeling in the team was really good after the bootcamp and coming into playoff matches. What's rough, as well, is the fact that it was really hard to find practice during the time we had bootcamp because some teams are playing CS2 and the teams practicing CS:GO are here in the playoffs, so you don't want to scrim them. But I feel like we did well overall, we just didn't get the result.

This is the end of CS:GO. How do you look back at your experience in the game as a whole?

This game completely changed my life. I was just a kid going to school and then I had a chance in FPL and MOUZ picked me up. So yeah, that turned my life upside down for the better. And I think just from the first year I played in MOUZ, I was put into a good environment where I could progress and get the experience that I needed. Over the years I've always felt really good in the teams I've been in and I think that's what made me progress the most.

Overall I'm extremely proud of my career in CS:GO. I've noted down every year that I played in a tier-one team and I've won a tournament each year. I'm really proud of that, that I managed to keep myself relevant. It doesn't matter what we went through, whether it's lineup changes or even changing a team with FaZe, and then going into a slump and winning Pro League this year. I'm just very grateful to my teammates and especially MOUZ. If that didn't happen, I have no idea where I would be.

CS2 will come out soon and you seem like one of the better people to ask. What are your general feelings about this game?

I think there are two ways of seeing this: Some people are saying that it's unplayable, and then some people are saying it's not ready for competition. The game is playable, so the people who are saying it's unplayable are definitely wrong. The game is not ready for competitive matches, but I think going forward with it is the best way to handle it. It obviously needs a lot of work and we don't even know what the meta is going to be with the new changes. With the smokes, open skyboxes, and everything.

So going forward, you kind of have to just force CS2 in a way, you have to force the teams to play CS2 tournaments because that's the best way to speed this whole thing up. Otherwise, if you want to play this year out on CS:GO, then some other stuff might pop up when you start playing CS2 that could have been fixed if it had been forced [earlier]. And, well, it's a new game, people need to be open-minded about it and know that this is going to take some time. It's not going to be perfect from the get-go, it's just about being patient and open-minded.

I saw you joking about the player vote to switch the EPL playoffs to CS2. Can you say anything about that?

I can say FaZe voted for CS2, that's about it. I think most of the teams voted for CS:GO, and again, it's just the open-mindedness. We're very open-minded about CS2 in our team and I think it's also great for the audience and the organizer, for viewership, but CS2 being put in would be rough for the players, so I see the other teams' point.

It's a bit dumb to switch games in the middle of a tournament, so I see their concern, and the integrity of the tournament suffers if you do that. When you come into this tournament you expect to play it out in CS:GO, especially once you play the group stage in it, but I'm glad they did a poll. I think that was the fairest way to do it.