Twistzz had a back-breaking 1v3 to send FaZe Clan all the way, after an instant classic and unforgettable series.
After being 0.5 seconds away from elimination in Stage 1, FaZe pulled themselves together and got to Stage 2 with a 3-2 record. That defuse was against Red Canids, the #69 team in the world.
Today, Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken hit a 1v3 with the Desert Eagle that broke a shaky NAVI, and sent FaZe Clan to the Major final against Team Vitality.
FaZe magic breaks NAVI’s structured domination
Despite losing, Drin ‘makazze’ Shaqiri and Ihor ‘w0nderful’ Zhdanov were solid for NAVI. They crushed FaZe completely on Ancient, with makazze going 16-4 on T-side, getting 6 opening kills for them.
NAVI won the first map convincingly, and were in position to win on Nuke, having an 8-4 lead going into the second half. They lost a 1v2 in the first half to Twistzz, and gave up multiple clutch rounds to a superb David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský and a streaky Helvijs ‘broky’ Saukants.
“We really needed to beat FaZe today,” Aleksib said after the match. “We’re not satisfied, we needed to get to the major final”
frozen’s heroics were enough to keep FaZe alive on Nuke 13-11, and send them to Inferno, where they beat MOUZ 13-3 yesterday.
FaZe had a 9-3 start on the defensive side of Inferno, and could seemingly do no wrong. One of NAVI’s rounds was a Valeriy ‘b1t’ Vakhovskiy 4k in a post-plant, one of his few glimmers in a shaky series from him.
Chaos to end Inferno
NAVI won a tight pistol round to keep themselves in the series. Despite that, FaZe took advantage of the situation, manipulating NAVI’s rotations.
NAVI stayed alive by streaking many rounds, with makazze playing extremely solid, but Round 20 finally broke them. Twistzz found himself in A-site against three players, downed two with the Deagle quickly.
It was left to makazze to win the necessary 1v1, but was imprecise as Twistzz nailed him with a headshot. NAVI was left with no money to defend their honor and fell to the Magician.
Mihai ‘iM’ Ivan was notably poor on one of his favorite maps, maybe drained after giving up Nuke in such a fashion. Despite that, he was one of NAVI’s starts at this event, and held up for the first two maps of the series.
We see FaZe Clan’s miracle run culminate tomorrow against the best team of 2025, Team Vitality. And there, former teammate, Robin ‘ropz’ Kool, awaits.
Match Statistics
NAVI vs FaZe Clan | Starladder Budapest Major Semi-final
13-4 (Ancient) – makazze | 2.54 rating
11-13 (Nuke) – frozen | 1.53 rating
8-13 (Inferno) – Twistzz | 1.87 rating
