On January 18 of 2018, FaZe Clan announced Leonardo ‘Astro’ Luis would join their ranks. A journey of more than five years. We spoke with the Brazilian star to talk about his time with FaZe and more.
A lot of players have come and gone during this period, but the question is this: is the current roster the best FaZe has had?
Astro had a clear answer.
‘Yes, absolutely. Because of the results [it] is the strongest one. After a time playing with a lot of players, I liked to play with Mav, gohaN and the guys from my actual roster. Live, kds, ion are players that are really good and still have a lot to show in R6.’
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Ups and downs
Looking back on his time with the organization so far, Astro also reflected on the ups and downs of his time with FaZe.
‘My best moment in FaZe was when we were able to win the Six Major in Sweden, that was a thing that we were looking for a long time ago. One of the worst moments was when we didn’t qualify for the Six Major in Mexico, I was not playing well. One bad moment was with the old roster where we were not capable [of playing] correctly, and we were really lost.’
Leading with the downs
Since 2021 with the same exact roster and with bad or better moments in the splits, Astro spoke about the team’s spirit when dealing with these moments.
‘We have in mind that we will eventually get through tough periods, but everyone knows how to deal with that and knows how to learn from that. We deal really well with the losses but in general, the team knows how to talk and to improve from those moments.’
Second Split
Following a no qualification to Copa Elite Six in the first split, rumors about changes surrounded FaZe for the second split.
‘At that time we were thinking about the game, what we would do or not. Soulz1 going to VALORANT was more like a joke from him because he was playing a lot [of] VALORANT [at] the time and everyone believed because he’s very good [at] playing it.’ He said.
‘We were thinking of new things and things to improve, and it is in that period where we can get better results when we have a pause to clean the mind and come back stronger.’
IGL changes
Eventually, Astro stepped forward into the position of In-game Leader, and he spoke with us about his feelings and how the shift has helped the team.
‘We changed the IGL, I changed with cameraman, who was doing that role. I’m now IGLing and he’s focusing on his own game to help the team. I’m able to do well [in] that role, I’m having the patience to learn new things to help the team.’ Said Astro.
‘That move gave new blood to the team for us to think in a new way to play that I had in my mind for a long time. I think it was a good move, we adapted well and fast.’
The results have spurred the team to keep the arrangement.
‘We [intend] to keep me as IGL due to the recent results we had. Cameraman now is helping the team in little decisions, more individual plays and sometimes pushing the team to collective plays. He has been improving his own performance and the team has adapted really well to everything. ‘
That one round
FaZe lost the Six Major final to Rogue, in a best of five with a difference of one round in the last map in the overtime. The Europeans lifted the trophy in a series where the whole five maps were played.
‘It’s hard to deal with these losses, we don’t like to lose.’ Astro explained. ‘It was very weird to deal with as we lost for so little, and the feeling is sadness due to being so close [a] match. We had a bad time when we felt the loss but a few days after that goes away as we think that we did our best.’
However the team grew from the experience.
‘Our learning from there is that the small details are very important and we’ve to be careful with rounds that can cost matches for us. This was the proof that one round has a huge importance.’ Said Astro.
‘In the end, we end up satisfied with our performance and the evolution that we had. This gives us more confidence, knowing our potential to do good and huge things. That’s the most important thing to me, our mental state to start the new split.’
Overtime
We also asked Astro for his opinion about overtime; since a lot of people have been debating the topic after the Six Major final.
‘I still don’t have an opinion about that.’ Astro said. ‘I think the best of fives are very long matches and there were maps that we won 8-7, so if there was infinite overtime the series was much longer, maybe a couple of hours more. I still don’t have a position on that but in the rounds we know we made some mistakes, and we have the feeling that we could win the match by other ways, winning the other maps.’
Third Split
Looking ahead to the future, we asked Astro to speak on the team’s readiness for the Third Split.
‘I think we have a small advantage because changing players is always a tough process, [to] adapt the player to the team style, see the position that he plays and there’s the detail of the maps, it’s nine maps so there are a lot of things to teach to the new player.’ Said Astro.
‘I think we’re in a good phase, we have to keep calm for the next split and not lose silly matches. I don’t think we start the next split a step forward compared to the other teams and the example of that is Team oNe that qualified for the Major in the first split with five players that didn’t play together in the past.’ He explained. ‘It will depend on the team’s dedication. There’s no way to measure the dedication of the players, everyone will give their best, I think the mental [aspect] will count a lot too.’
