Havard «rain» FaZe's Nygaard, who has remained quarantined since the group stage of IEM Katowice, will also miss the playoffs. The Norwegian will have to continue his self-isolation, while online participation is not allowed in the final stage of the tournament, unlike in the group stage.
His place in FaZe will be taken by Australian cybersportsman Justin «jks» Savage. He had previously appeared on the roster as a substitute player. During the preparatory bootcamp and in the first matches of IEM Katowice he played instead of Robin «ropz» Kool, who also missed games due to coronavirus.
In Katowice Justin managed to play three matches in the FaZe team – two in the play-in and one in the group stage. The team won all three with the jks posting an average rating of 1.03. However, in one of the matches his result was more impressive: during the decisive match against MOUZ, the victory in which secured FaZe's place in the playoffs, jks with a rating of 1.36 was the most successful in his team on the final map.
FaZe won the quarterfinal match against Gambit on Friday evening and will now face Heroic on February 26. It seems that the absence of one of the main players was not a problem for FaZe: it beat Gambit on two maps and with a significant advantage.