In FaZe\u2019s IEM Katowice win, stand-in jks took the spotlight ESLJustin \u2018jks\u2019 Savage came in at the last minute and helped FaZe win IEM Katowice as a stand-in. It was a fairytale story for the Australian, who was at the lowest point of his career. As the CS:GO tournament season began at the end of January, jks braced himself for what was coming next. More weeks, potentially months, stuck in limbo, watching old foes from afar, waiting for something to happen. And then his phone rang. On the other end of the call was FaZe, asking if he could stand in for Robin \u2018ropz\u2019 Kool in the early stages of IEM Katowice after the Estonian had returned a positive test in the lead-up to the Polish event. Standing in as the 5th member of our professional CS:GO roster to begin IEM Katowice, please welcome @COL_jks! ropz will rejoin the starting lineup following his recovery & quarantine as soon as it is safe for him to do so. #FaZeUp pic.twitter.com\/elTfdTBKwh \u2014 FaZe Clan (@FaZeClan) February 10, 2022 Jks had barely touched the game since being benched by Complexity in November following the disbandment of the \u2018Juggernaut\u2019 project. He was also coming off a forgetful year with that team, so he knew that if he fluffed his lines, he could find himself in an even worse position in the market. But he concluded that the benefits of playing top-tier CS:GO on LAN again outweighed the risks, so he decided to give it a shot and hoped for the best. In the end, he wound up making history for Australian Counter-Strike. Becoming Australia\u2019s darling Jks established himself as the best player in Australia and one of the best in the world during his time playing for Renegades and 100 Thieves. He became the first player from his country in history to make it to HLTV\u2019s Top 20 list in 2019 \u2013 a magical year for him and his team, who reached the playoffs at the IEM Katowice and Starladder Berlin Majors, in addition to finishing runners-up to Astralis at IEM Beijing. It was clear that jks had outgrown his surroundings and that he should move to a bigger, non-Australian team to realize his full potential. So when 100 Thieves decided to withdraw from CS:GO, Complexity and jks seemed like a match made in heaven. But the reality was far different. There was already an air of dysfunction when jks joined the team, and things became even worse during his time there as problems kept popping up. In an interview with Dexerto at the end of 2021, head coach Luis \u2018peacemaker\u2019 Tadeu said that the perception that the team was falling apart was very much real. In a system Benjamin \u2018blameF\u2019 Bremer built heavily around himself, jks looked a shadow of the player he had been on his previous teams, averaging a meager 1.02 HLTV rating. He took some of the fault for his low impact and struggles to adapt to his new circumstances, but the instability plaguing the team, coupled with role clashes and internal issues, made it impossible for him to perform to the best of his abilities. \u201cIt could have been really good, but it wasn\u2019t,\u201d jks said in an interview with Duncan \u2018Thorin\u2019 Shields in November, describing his time on Complexity as \u201ca negative experience overall\u201d. Stepping in for FaZe Dressed up in a jersey belonging to Russel \u2018Twistzz\u2019 Van Dulken with the Canadian flag on the front, jks helped FaZe to move through the Play-In stage and win their first match in the group stage. Still rusty and mostly concerned about not letting his teammates down, he averaged a 1.03 HLTV rating, surpassing the 1.05 rating mark only on two maps. With ropz coming back to the team for their second group match against Fnatic, it was supposed to be the end of jks\u2019 stand-in spell. But a positive test returned by another FaZe player, H\u00e5vard \u2018rain\u2019 Nygaard, put the Australian on alert. Just 30 minutes before the team was due to travel to the Spodek Arena for their first playoff match against Gambit, jks was told that he was going to play the remainder of the tournament. The rest, as they say, is history. Despite having only a few days preparation, jks looked much more comfortable stepping into rain\u2019s shoes and playing in some of his usual positions. He became more consistent in the playoffs and delivered some vintage moments of individual brilliance, most notably the 1v2 clutch that secured the marathon Mirage game against G2 in the final. He averaged a 1.13 rating in the playoffs, helping to unlock a number of situations with 0.15 opening kills per round, the fourth-highest in the knockout stages. NO F*CKING WAY JUSTIN @COL_jks @FaZeClan NO ONE CAN STOP JUZZY#IEM pic.twitter.com\/o4GosXlU0E \u2014 ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) February 27, 2022 There is no understating how important winning IEM Katowice was for this FaZe team, built to climb the highest peaks. Ropz agreed to a pay cut to join FaZe in the hopes that triumphant moments like this would become a regular occurrence. After the match, an emotional Finn \u2018karrigan\u2019 Andersen expressed relief at finally lifting the trophy in Katowice after losing the 2017 and 2018 finals to Astralis and fnatic. For jks, too, it was a remarkable moment. He added another entry to his impressive r\u00e9sum\u00e9 as he became the first Australian player to win a top-tier event in CS:GO. But at the same time, the victory in Katowice adds to his frustration. With the tournament season underway, chances are that more months of waiting are ahead of him as most teams will ride out the Major cycle before pulling the trigger on roster changes. FaZe themselves could be a destination, but they will likely give the team a few LAN events before passing judgment on rain\u2019s future. As he watched jks lift the trophy, Complexity owner Jason Lake wrote on Twitter that he hopes the successful stand-in spell will spark interest in the player. According to him, the organization had not received any offers from European teams since his benching. Completely agree. JKS wants to live & play in EU. We’ve kept him on a salary and secured his visa but have had no offers yet. Hopefully this event sparks some interest because he’s obviously still a star and deserving of a team. https:\/\/t.co\/OU00SaipRw \u2014 Jason Lake (@JasonBWLake) February 27, 2022 In a way, there was a sense of irony to it all: jks\u2019 struggles on Complexity ultimately helped him to win the kind of trophy he had been chasing his whole career. And it\u2019s not just because he was available for hire because of his benching. By his own admission, he is now \u201cmore of a complete player\u201d, having \u201clearned how to play differently\u201d during his troubled tenure with the international team. That certainly came in handy when he had to fill in for two different players at a moment\u2019s notice on one of the biggest stages. With a big trophy to his name, jks will return to his routine, now with a renewed sense of confidence, his stock once again high. He knows it is a matter of time before his phone rings again. \u201cWhoever wants to contact me, I\u2019m on Twitter,\u201d he told reporters after the event. \u201cI\u2019m waiting to see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In FaZe\u2019s IEM Katowice win, stand-in jks took the spotlight ESLJustin \u2018jks\u2019 Savage came in at the last minute and helped FaZe win IEM Katowice as a stand-in. It was a fairytale story for the Australian, who was at the lowest point of his career. As the CS:GO tournament season began at the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}