FaZe Clan

The Beginning of FaZe

Their first roster was created in 2012 consisting of Heist, Folsom, Secretly, and Sham to compete at the MLG Winter Championship 2012. The team's expectations were unclear however their fans came in large numbers due to the base they already built. Their next roster was Heist, Methodz, Replays, and MBoze. The team didn't end up winning, however they finished a respectable 5th place and took home $2,300 at the event. Despite this, the roster got a complete makeover going into UMG Atlanta as only Replays stayed to be joined by Slacked, Huhdle, and SpaceLy. Despite the new look, the team struggled to get any momentum. After dropping to the losers bracket following a loss to vVv Gaming in Round 4. Facing the tough task of going through the losers bracket to win the event, the team fell to Curse finishing in a very disappointing 9th place. Even with the sub par performance, the team decided to stick with the same roster going into the MLG PAX Prime Invitational. The team was able to make to the semifinals of the 8 team invitational, however that is where they were eliminated by eventual 2nd-place finisher, compLexity Gaming. To close out Black Ops 2, the team attended the 4 team MLG Fall Invitational. The team once again kept the same roster but was unable to break the slump as they finished a disappointing 4th place and winning no money to end the game.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

With the launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts, FaZe decided a change was necessary and replaced FaZe Slacked with FaZe Classic, a personal friend of early co-founder Replays. With the roster of Classic, SpaceLy, Huhdle, and Replays the team wanted to kick the new game off with a strong showing at the MLG Fall Championship. With the 8th seed, the team was tasked with having to face the tough European team, TCM Gaming. They were unable to match up with the Europeans and fell 3-1 dropping to the Losers bracket immediately. The team still had an opportunity to prove themselves, but Team eLevate|eLevate.VeXed had other thoughts as they knocked FaZe out with a 3-2 victory. This left the team with a Top-24 finish which is the worst placement in FaZe history. The result was not something the team was happy with and decided that they needed another major change. The team got rid of SpaceLy and Huhdle and replaced them with JKap and Methodz. JKap had been regarded as one of the better AR-based players in the game and Methodz was on the inaugural roster from Black Ops 2.

The new roster was showing some promise while practicing and was hoping to right the string of poor performances at UMG Philadelphia. Unfortunately for the team, they were given a tough bracket. They kicked off the event by knocking OpTic Gaming to the Losers bracket with a 3-2 win. However, that win set them up with compLexity Gaming. compLexity was easily the favorite for the event having won the MLG Fall Championship and most of the events to close out Black Ops 2. The team put up a tough fight but fell short losing 3-2. In the losers bracket, the first team they matched up against was Team Kaliber. Once more, the team gave it their all but fell short and lost 3-2 landing them the 7th-place finish. While the team didn't place in the money, the two teams they lost to finished in 1st and 2nd respectively showing the team had some promise. Following this event, the Call of Duty Championship 2014 was announced and it was reveal that all players had to be at least 18 years old to compete. Because of this, the team had no choice but to release Methodz. The time following UMG Philadelphia, consisted of most teams changing up rosters. NameLeSs was dropped by Curse LV and FaZe jumped at the opportunity to pick him up. However, after a few weeks, ProoFy announced that he was leaving EnVyUs. Despite NameLeSs being a solid player, the team felt they could improve and decided to drop him in favor of ProoFy.

Following the roster changes, all eyes turned to the 2014 Call of Duty Championship in March where teams would be competing for a total prize pool of $1,000,000. To qualify the team first had to get through one of two online qualifiers and place in the Top 8. FaZe competed in first one on February 1, 2014 and went through the competition without much challenge. They defeated Curse NY 3-0 to secure their spot at the Call of Duty Championship 2014: US Regionals. Once again teams were required to finish in the Top 8 to qualify for the championship event. Despite a first round loss to Strictly Business, who would go on to win the regional event, the team was able to fight it's way through the lower bracket and finish 4th place securing their spot. At the championship event, the team was upset by the Australian team Trident T1 Dotters in group stage but were able to advance to Bracket play with two big wins over SK Gaming and Aztek Gaming. They secured the 2nd seed in their group and set a match with the other Australian team, Team Immunity. They avoided another upset by defeating them 3-0 with the one of the top European teams, Epsilon eSports. They won again to set up a match against the favorites compLexity in which FaZe was unable to overcome the heavy favorites losing 3-1. The team still had a chance to win the even through the Losers bracket but lost their next match against Strictly Business 3-0. The team finished 6th place and walked away with $50,000.[1]

After the event, the organization decided to make some major changes with their roster. They decided to give ProoFy his own team with the creation of FaZe Black and having Theory fill his spot on the previous team which would now be known as FaZe Red. To complete the FaZe Black roster, ProoFy was joined by 2 members of the previous team with Censor and Saints along with FormaL joining from Team KaLiBeR. Upon creation, some started calling them a "God Squad" and possibly the team to finally dethrone compLexity (whose team later transferred to Evil Geniuses). Unfortunately, after a few weeks, ProoFy left the team to fill the void at OpTic Gaming that was left when MBoZe was given his own team in OpTic Nation. This left FaZe Black looking for one and that spot was taken by Dedo who had previously teamed with Censor and Saints. At the time, the MLG Ghosts League Season 2 was announced in which the FaZe Red team kept their spot due to competing in MLG Pro Circuit Season 1, however FaZe Black was not given a spot at first due to the roster changes. Even though 3 members of FaZe Black had competed on Strictly Business, the organization was given the spot, and not the players. Fortunately after a few days, MLG changed these rules and invited the team to compete in the league.

With the rosters finally settled, the teams began their practice for UGC Niagara. Both of the teams were hoping to have strong showings unfortunately the event took a turn for the worst for FaZe Black before it even started. Saints announced that he would not be attending the event. This left the team looking for one a day before the event started. They were able to pick up Saintt in the last minute unfortunately they lost their Championship Bracket spot and were going to have to go through the open bracket. The FaZe Red team meanwhile had the 5 seed and were sitting a good position. Despite the roster change, FaZe Black was able to make it through the open bracket and fight it's way all the way to a 5th/6th-place finish losing to OpTic Nation. They were able to defeat Strictly Business in the consolation game to secure 5th place and finish in the money. FaZe Red didn't perform nearly as well as they were dropped to the Losers bracket following a 3-2 loss by EnVyUs and then lost their first game in the Losers' Bracket to Team KaLiBeR getting eliminated from the tournament and finishing in the 9th-12th position.

FaZe participated in the Season 3 championships.[2]

Roster Troubles

Much later in to the life cycle of Call of Duty: Ghosts, FaZe sees yet another roster change; however this change is a result of personal issues between teammates. Parasite has a long history of showing blatant disrespect for his teammates and fans, and Censor as team captain finds himself uncomfortable with this consistent behavior and then decides to intervene and bench the player. Shortly after a very professional ordeal coming out of Censor, his actions are quickly undone as Dedo is traded to Evil Geniuses in exchange for a temporary loan of Karma, and Parasite is back in play. Apathy and Censor, alongside FaZe management agreed with the decision to bench Parasite in the first place, and worked things out behind the scenes to get him back into the MLG League as a part of FaZe.[3]

Advanced Warfare, A Season of Success?

As yet another series of Roster Swaps went down, FaZe were a part of the action. With Karma only being there on a loan contract and Parasite also departing as he attempted to reform Impact, Censor and Apathy were left looking for two. They considered many AW Gamebattle leaders such as Origin, Mike, Gyrusa, and Rejack. They eventually were able to bring ACHES and SlasheR on board and went on to MLG Columbus in search of a championship. At MLG Columbus, FaZe started well, going 3-1 in their pool to come out into the winners bracket. However, on Saturday night the team were hit with a bombshell, as ACHES was left to spend the night in hospital following cutting his hand open. However even with stitches in his hand ACHES was determined to continue his streak of winning the first event of every CoD title. Unfortunately their chances looked to be over with ACHES appearing to struggle as they were swept 3-0 by Prophecy and went down into the losers bracket. However, here they bounced back incredibly beating Denial, Team KaLiBeR and Prophecy before heading on to the grand finals against OpTic Gaming. In the finals FaZe were able to pull off the impossible, winning two best of 5 series to take MLG Columbus and $10,000 with Censor picking up three kills in the final round of the game 5 SnD.[4] FaZe would look to take this momentum into UMG Orlando, but doubts were beginning to enter people's minds even before the event due to constant arguing online. However many still felt that the skill of the players would lead to another very successful placement. FaZe started very poorly, going 1-3 in their pool and they headed into losers bracket, where they would need an incredible run to repeat their success that they found at Columbus. They were able to defeat Rise, but fell to EnVyUs in a thrilling 5 map series and finished with a placement of T16.

About halfway through the first 2015 Season, Censor steps down as captain and the title is handed over to ACHES. Not too soon later, ACHES decides to change things up a bit and chooses to trade Huke (their substitute), Censor and Apathy for Parasite from Prophecy, and also Enable and Faccento from JusTus.

New Squad and New Success

As Advanced Warfare continued to move along, a deal was struck upon between FaZe and Denial Esports. FaZe reportedly found that Huke and Slasher were unsettled at FaZe and were shopping themselves to other teams. As a result, the organization and key members ZooMaa and Enable, traded the two, for COD Champions Clayster and Attach.[5]

The deal established FaZe as a top 3 team, and the new squad proved that with strong showings in the Pro League, as well as multiple LAN wins. Their first of which was the UMG Dallas 2015 event, in which the new squad beat OpTic 3-0.[6]

Soon after the squad traveled to Europe to try to win the 2015 GFinity LAN event. FaZe ran through the tournament with ease and were pitted once again against OpTic gaming in the final. OpTic picked up a 3-0 lead in the best of 4. However, FaZe made the 3-0 comeback to win the LAN event.