Earlier this week, TwoEasy tweeted that he had been removed from the active FaZe roster. The former captain will no longer be playing with FaZe and was not present for their final four games in NGE Winter Premiere. This marks the end of a six month tenure with the FaZe roster he put together.
In those last four games of the Winter Premiere, TF2 legend MikeyA was the replacement for FaZe. He is trialling for the team in the hitscan dps role after a long hiatus from competitive Overwatch, reuniting with his former teammates from G2, ShaDowBurn and Forsak3n.
Despite a win over Citizen7 and several close games, FaZe were eliminated from the $100,000 tournament as they failed to secure enough victories to bring them out of the bottom two. Their only other win was against compLexity, who avoided elimination by beating Kungarna and LG, finishing one spot above FaZe.
As some of you may already know I am no longer on the active roster of the FaZe Overwatch team. Will have more information soon.
— FaZe TwoEasy (@FaZe2Easy) 10 January 2017
FaZe has been plagued by inconsistent performances, as seen with their recent elimination from NGE, despite performing strongly at the two LANs they attended. They placed 2nd most recently at MLG Vegas, and went 2-0 up against Rogue before being eliminated 2-3 in the European Semifinals of the Overwatch Open.
Reasons for their inconsistency have centred around the geographic split of their roster; with TwoEasy, ShaDowBurn, and Forsak3n in Europe playing at North American times on high ping, the team is handicapped when playing online. The roster also has a mixture of fierce personalities that have led to tension within the team and apparent difficulties performing without the intense pressure of a championship.
Despite being a clear talent, this is the second time that TwoEasy has been removed from a long-standing Overwatch team. In June last year he was removed from REUNITED, a team formed by a group of Battlefield 4 competitors, some who had been together with TwoEasy for six years.
The schism cast TwoEasy out alone and propelled REUNITED into short-term glory, but TwoEasy quickly went on to create a precursor to the FaZe roster, then known as WEUNITED. FaZe later knocked REUNITED out of the Overwatch Open and have been more successful of late. Now stormy seas have put captain TwoEasy again on the wrong end of the plank, facing the swirling depths of uncertainty once more.
There has, as yet, been no official reason given by the FaZe players or management as to why TwoEasy was removed. Both parties were approached for comment and these will be posted as separate pieces within the next couple of days.
The FaZe roster is now:
- George "ShaDowBurn" Gushcha (DPS)
- Jared "zombs" Gitlin (Flex)
- Russell "FCTFCTN" Campbell (Tank)
- Shane "Rawkus" Flaherty (Support)
- Viktors "Forsak3n" Bernevs (Support)