A rebuilt FaZe lineup beat NAVI Junior 13-2 on both maps of the grand final in Portugal to lift the organization’s first trophy since April 2024.
FaZe Clan won Roman Imperium Cup IX on Saturday with a 2-0 win over NAVI Junior in the grand final at the SAW Esports Arena in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
FaZe won Anubis 13-2 and Nuke 13-2, conceding four rounds in the series.
The event is a C-tier tournament with a €12,000 prize pool, according to Liquipedia. For FaZe, the result still carries weight. It is the first tournament win for the organization since IEM Chengdu in April 2024, where FaZe beat MOUZ 2-0 in the final.
Two Major finals, no trophies
FaZe have not been far away from silverware in the period since Chengdu. The team reached the grand final of the Perfect World Shanghai Major in December 2024, where they lost 2-1 to Team Spirit, and returned to a Major final at the StarLadder Budapest Major in December 2025, losing 3-1 to Team Vitality.
2026 has been a different story. FaZe have not reached the top two at any S-tier event this year. Their best results were semi-final finishes at BLAST Rivals Spring and BLAST Bounty Summer, while early exits at IEM Kraków, PGL Cluj-Napoca, BLAST Open Spring, IEM Atlanta and the Esports World Cup kept the team away from the business end of the biggest events.
The weeks before Portugal followed the same trend. FaZe finished 13th-16th at FISSURE Playground #3 in September and 7th-8th at Stake Ranked Episode 4 earlier this month, where Astralis knocked them out.
A roster rebuilt in five months
The lineup that won in Portugal looks very different from the one that reached the Budapest Major final ten months ago. According to Liquipedia, the changes came in several steps:
- March: Coach Filip ‘NEO‘ Kubski left for a coaching role at Astralis.
- April: Finn ‘karrigan‘ Andersen left the team and later joined Team Falcons. Niclas ‘enkay J’ Krumhorn took over as head coach.
- June: AWPer Helvijs ‘broky‘ Saukants was moved to the bench, and Jason ‘JBOEN’ Nielsen joined on loan from BIG Academy to take over the AWP.
- August: Ryan ‘Neityu’ Aubry completed the current lineup.
David ‘frozen‘ Čerňanský, Jakub ‘jcobbb’ Pietruszewski and Russel ‘Twistzz‘ Van Dulken are the three players who remain from the Budapest Major final. Roman Imperium Cup IX was the first title for the new five.
How the final played out
The grand final was a rematch of the upper bracket final, where FaZe beat NAVI Junior 2-1. That series came down to Dust2, which FaZe won 19-15 after double overtime.
NAVI Junior returned to the grand final by beating Sangal Esports 2-1 in the lower bracket final, but could not repeat the same level a few hours later. FaZe had already beaten Sangal 2-1 in the upper quarter-finals and PURE 2-0 in the upper semi-finals, and finished the playoffs without losing a series.
What the win means for FaZe
The financial reward is modest. FaZe earned €6,000 for the title, while NAVI Junior took €3,000, Sangal €2,000 and PURE €1,000. By comparison, FaZe earned $170,000 for finishing second at the Budapest Major.
The bigger prize could be in Valve’s Regional Standings, which tournament organizers use when inviting teams to their events. A predicted VRS update published after the final has FaZe moving from 20th to 16th. Valve’s rankings only update officially once a month.
