FaZe Clan sails past BIG to open their IEM Cologne 2025 campaign, marking its first event since the player break and with broky back on the roster after being on the bench.
VETO
- BIG removed Overpass
- FaZe removed Train
- BIG picked Inferno
- FaZe picked Ancient
- BIG removed Nuke
- FaZe removed Mirage
- Dust2 was left over
.@FaZeEsports are starting their #IEM Cologne run by facing off against the hometown heroes in @BIGCLANgg 👀
Can the Germans cause an upset? We're about to go live! pic.twitter.com/4s7N26VuVE
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 23, 2025
Map 1: Inferno; Pick: BIG; Winner: FaZe
BIG’s pistol win went in vain as FaZe picked up the first gun round, levelling the scoreline and edging out into a lead. BIG did manage to make it competitive, winning 4 rounds on their offence, but the FaZe defence had a read and capitalised on it, leading to an 8-4 half.
BIG did manage to cut the lead short, winning the pistol and subsequent rounds on the defence, but FaZe got back to winning ways with the first gun round. Winning the first gun round, FaZe put up a streak of rounds, closing out the map with a dominant scoreline.
Having been under the crosshairs of the critiques, frozeN dropping 23 kills is a testament to his prowess and proves why FaZe has chosen to retain him post Major.
Map 2: Ancient; Pick: FaZe; Winner: FaZe
Getting on the board after converting a force buy, FaZe remained largely dominant on the offensive side of Ancient, leading to BIG going on the back foot right from the beginning. Winning 6 rounds in a row to close the half, FaZe swapped to the defence with a 9-3 lead.
Having the comfort zone, FaZe started to bleed rounds as BIG tried their level best to capitalise on it. Just as they found themselves 3 rounds away from levelling the scoreline, FaZe managed to close the series out, having largely remained dominant for the better part of the game.
With a rating of 1.32, broky announced his return with a banger performance against BIG as the Latvian laser looks just as sharp as he was in his prime.
Many assumed FaZe would retain s1mple, but bringing broky back from the bench was a questionable decision. While the dataset is limited to one game, broky looked solid against BIG, but replicating the same against the BIG names is ta ask of a tall order, and only time can tell if Karrigan can once again gel this team together.
