ALGS Spotlight: The New FaZe Clan
If you’ve been paying attention to FaZe Clan in the Apex Legends Pro League, you may have noticed a massive change from their performance in the ALGS Split 1 back in 2022. Notably, they’re sitting high in second place overall when they finished in 20th back in the first half of the ALGS Pro League Split. What happened to turn this team around? It’s basically a brand new team being led by Snip3down.
What happened to FaZe Clans Apex Team?
When the FaZe Clan ALGS team first came together last year, they were expected to the take the scene by storm. Eric "Snip3down" Wron and Mac "Albralelie" Beckwith had history as they had both played for TSM and their third, Gregory "SlurpeeG" Sabia, was a known crackshot. On paper they should’ve been an unstoppable force in the Apex Legends Global Series.
One of the problems with this roster was recent experience. Snip3down was fresh off his Halo tour coming back into the pro scene. SlurpeeG didn’t have much pro circuit experience besides the 2021 ALGS and Albralelie was trying his hand at in-game leading for the first time. It would also be the first time that Snipe3down and SlurpeeG ever placed with each other and chemistry is key in esports regardless of how cracked you are.
None of that is to say that this team couldn’t work, but like all things worth doing you need practice. Because FaZe is a legacy brand they were invited straight into the ALGS Pro League, so they didn’t have to play through Pro League Qualifiers. They were put up against the best of the best right off the rip.
The potential was there as they demonstrated on Match Day 2, with a massive win and kill count. But the victory was short lived as they struggled to place top 10 the rest of the tournament. Further complications and poor performances led to rifts forming in the squad that further broke down team communication.
The New ALGS FaZe
FaZe Clan’s Apex Legends Global Series squad went through a few changes earlier this year as a result of the Split 1 Pro League placements. Snip3down is still the captain of the team, aftering parting ways with Albralelie in December and SlurpeeG in January following their poor performances. The new FaZe roster picked up Joseph "Frexs" Sanchez and Josue "Phony" Ruiz in early March just as the Apex Legends Pro League Split 2 was set to get underway.
Snip3down
Snip3down is one of the most prominent names in the ALGS. He’s been playing Apex Legends since launch back in 2019, but had a small stint in the Halo competitive scene in 2022 with FaZe Clan before coming back to Apex Legends. FaZe built their first team late last year around Snip3down and kept him to rebuild the team around for the Apex Legends Pro League Split 2.
Prior to joining FaZe Clan, Snip3down has played with two different legacy organizations, Rogue and TSM. He spent only half a year on Rogue and most of his tournament credits are with TSM. According to Liquipedia, of his 10 tournament results he has 4 third places, 1 second and 5 first places.
Snip3down has been playing Valkyrie for FaZe clan, putting him in charge of rotations and getting early picks on enemy teams so the rest of his squad can help clean up. Historically, prior to joining FaZe, Snip3down was never the in-game leader for his team. But after playing with some of the biggest IGLs in Apex history, he has more than enough experience to be taking the role for FaZe.
Phony
Phony has made a name for himself over the last few years professional Apex Legends. He’s been playing since launch in 2019 and spent a majority of his time on Team Esports Arena playing through all tiers of professional Apex.
In a clip shared to Reddit from his Twitch Stream, Phony talks about going from Team Esports Arena to FaZe clan, mentioning that even just within the first scrims with his new team he was able to identify issues he needed to fix. Though Phony has some experience with in-game leading, he’s taking a back seat to Snip3down and focusing on playing the teams Seer. It’s just as vital of a role in a meta where information is key and nearly everyone is running Seer for his wall scans.
Frexs
Playing the team's controller character, Catalyst, Frexs has a top tier resume having started his career with Cloud0, playing with Team Reciprocity, then joining NRG and Spacestation Gaming before finally finding his way to FaZe Clan.
His time with Spacestation Gaming proved the most successful where he picked up a few top three placements among several S, A and B Tier tournaments.
FaZe and the Apex Pro League
So far the squad is in a pretty good position to make their way into the Paris LAN for the Split 2 Playoffs. They landed a third place finish in round 1 with a fourth, second and third place with a total of 27 kills across the day. In round 2 they improved landing in second with only a first place finish, but 35 kills over the course of the day. Round 4 saw them score a first place, a second place, a fourth place and a total of only 15 kills, which put them at fourth overall for the round.
Round 5 is where things start to get messy as FaZe’s performance had a massive drop. They came in 18th overall for the day with only 6 total kills and their best placement was at 6th, every other match they were one of the first 5 to be eliminated.
Despite a poor 5th round performance FaZe Clan is still poised to easily make the Paris LAN Playoffs so long as they can keep gaining points. They’re sitting at 57 in the overall standings, putting them in second place behind only XSET who has 60 points. However, they only have two more rounds of group stages, whereas all the teams in Group B and C have three, so it’s possible some of the other teams can sneak up and push them down with great performances.
Where and when to watch the ALGS Pro League
The ALGS Pro League continues every weekend on Saturday and Sunday until the end of May. Tune in on the official Apex Legends Twitch and YouTube Channel. And for all your questions about how the Apex Legends Global Series Pro League works, check out our summary here.
