At long last he has taken the title. Finn “karrigan” Andersen has snatched the Major title. The long long road to get there, however, was anything but easy.
As an in-game leader, karrigan has repeatedly built a new team only to narrowly miss out on the biggest CS:GO title time and time again.
With his second attempt at FaZe Clan, the legendary German-Danish pro has now fulfilled his dream. At the Antwerp Major, he was able to hold the trophy in the air after a thrilling final against Natus Vincere. We take a look back at the long path that led him there.
Roots in Counter-Strike 1.6
Karrigan’s career started like that of many CS:GO pros with CS 1.6, where he went through a few smaller teams before making a name for himself as an AWP player and proving himself in the German mousesports team together with Fatih “gob b” Dayik and Michele “zonixx” Köhler towards the end of 2010.
After winning big tournaments on a national level with victories at the ESL Pro Series and even in the European region at the IEM IV, he moved on to his last 1.6 station. With the Swedish organisation Fnatic, he thus became one of the big names in the scene before making the switch to CS:GO.
A difficult change and the roots of Astralis
At the start of CS:GO, the Dane changed teams several times, none of which were quite the right fit. He took part in the first CS:GO Major with team n!faculty, where Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander, who would later replace him at Astralis, also played.
In between, he also paid a visit to mousesports and even the Playing Ducks, so he tried his hand at German teams again. Here, too, he achieved national success, but worldwide the breakthrough was difficult. At the EMS One Katowice 2014 he was part of Reason Gaming and only one Major later with the Copenhagen Wolves.
For the first time in his CS:GO career, karrigan was able to gain a foothold at Dignitas in late 2014. There he met Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth and Nicolai “device” Reedtz – the core of the legendary Astralis. There he also became the new in-game leader.
After the organisational change to Team SoloMid (TSM), the team would quickly become a contender for the really big titles. They won tournaments such as the PGL CS:GO Championship Series 2015 and the Fragbite Masters Season 4, and reached the semi-finals of ESL One Cologne.
After a few more months and solid results, the announcement followed in early 2016 that the first player-owned organisation would enter the scene with the founding of Astralis.
Hope was followed by disappointment
While karrigan’s aggressive style as an in-game leader helped the team blossom and move into the upper echelons, there wasn’t much motivation left in 2016.
Astralis seemed to be one of the strongest teams at many tournaments. But especially at important tournaments like MLG Columbus 2016 and ESL One Cologne 2016, they lost their nerves in the playoffs and lost to beatable teams. This is how they became known as “Chokestralis”. Karrigan was the in-game leader but was identified as the sore spot due to his rather low shooting power.
As the rest of the players were tired of his leadership, he was kicked out of the team. Thus karrigan found his way to the Faze Clan.
Karrigan is joining FaZe this week, who will kick Kioshima, per sources. Expect Karrigan to play with FaZe at E-League in just 4 days.
– DeKay (@dekay) October 17, 2016
A new beginning
At this point, FaZe Clan was a rather unimpressive project with European players from whom little was expected. This changed with the arrival of karrigan, who was instrumental in getting star player Nikola “NiKo” Kovač to join the team in early 2017.
From then on, a pattern emerged: under karrigan’s leadership, the team got better and better. Especially against his former team Astralis, karrigan won almost every match. This is how they reached first place at the StarLadder StarSeries Season 3 – and won against the Danes in the final.
This was repeated at ESL One: New York 2017, ELEAGUE Premier 2017 and IEM Sydney 2018, among others. Meanwhile, FaZe’s prestige rose, they reached number one in the rankings and players like Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer and Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács filled the roster.
In the second half of 2018, however, the results flattened out again. Even at Majors, the team under karrigan, like at Astralis, could not live up to its usual standard. Niko pushed him out of his role as in-game leader, and after a win at EPICENTER 2018, no successes followed for a while. Karrigan had to leave again.
Return to mousesports
Since karrigan’s last stay at mousesports, the team had changed a lot. In March 2019, the organisation announced a new roster:
- Chris “chrisJ” de Jong as a perennial mousesports veteran,
- Robin “ropz” Kool as an unpredictable FPL talent,
- Özgür “woxic” Eker, who transferred from troubled HellRaisers,
- David “frozen” Čerňanský, who until then had only played in small teams,
- Karrigan as the new leader of the squad.
Announcing the new CS:GO roster for mousesports:
– @chrisJcsgo
– @FROZENNcs
– @karriganCSGO
– @ropzicle
– @w0xicFull Story: https://t.co/00Mc8VpOYR pic.twitter.com/OtaLJFeNbS
– MOUZ (@mousesports) March 14, 2019
Thus, the team already made a perfect new start at the Tier 2 tournament DreamHack Open Tours 2019, which was followed by good performances in the top scene. After a certain break-in period, the team then really took off at the end of 2019: a first place at the Asia Championships 2019, victory at the ESL Pro League Season 10 and at cs_summit 5 catapulted the team to the top.
As a result, they were the second best team in the world at the start of 2020, just behind Astralis. As promising as the mousesports successes were, the beginning of the online era was a big blow to the team. They were eliminated early in important tournaments and despite the promising newcomer Aurimas “bymas” Pipiras, the results were mixed.
Highs such as second place at the eleventh ESL Pro League were followed by repeated low blows such as elimination in the group phase at various Dreamhacks or the RMR tournaments.
The circle closes at FaZe Clan
2021 karrigan finally pulled the ripcord and once again left a team he had helped to build. This time, however, it was of his own volition and he returned to FaZe Clan after NiKo left the team for G2.
For FaZe Clan, this was the start of a long overdue period of change. 2021 was not an immediate return to old triumphs for the team. But signs of hope could be found, such as the top 4 finish at the IEM Cologne 2021. But it was not until 2022 that karrigan was finally able to find the final piece of the puzzle for his team. FaZe Clan grabbed his old colleague ropz from mousesports in February and played their way to the top of the world rankings in no time with the following lineup:
- Håvard “rain” Nygaard
- Helvijs “broky” Saukants
- Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken
- Finn “karrigan” Andersen
- Robin “ropz” Kool
Dreams come true.
Welcome to FaZe Clan, @ropzicle. FaZeUp pic.twitter.com/JDWp50Acly
– FaZe Clan (@FaZeClan) January 3, 2022
But in contrast to the heart-stopping final of 2018 in Boston, karrigan and his team held their nerve against CS:GO legend s1mple and prevailed 2-0 (19:16 – 16:10). karrigan has finally realised his long-cherished dream. He is the best ingame leader in the world.
