FaZe Clan lost the Winners Bracket Finals against Sentinels at the NA VCT Masters one tournament Friday. As a result of their loss, FaZe will go down to the Lower Bracket Finals to face either Gen.G or Envy on Saturday, while Sentinels advanced to the Grand Final match.

Although his team did not win the match, FaZe's most explosive player Andrej “babybay” Francisty still managed to top frag on his team and walk away from the match in pretty good spirits. After the match, we had the chance to speak with Babybay about his thoughts on the match, his excitement to play on LAN at the VCT Masters International in stage 2, and his ultimate goal of becoming the first-ever VALORANT world champion.

You seemed pretty confident coming into the match, what went wrong against Sentinels today? Did they just disrupt your game plan too much?

I definitely feel like they watched our stuff and found out very tiny things that would interrupt our aggression and it was really well played by them. I feel like on our attacks we did find out answers for their adaptations for how we play, but it was too late by the time we figured it out. The game was just so far away from winning.

Not winning any pistol rounds also makes that even harder, trying to get back in the game. Our worst map was icebox, which was a landslide for Sentinels. I think they got 8 rounds in a row where we failed to adapt to something they were doing. But after that, we picked up three, and they only ended up winning one. So we just took too long to adapt, whereas against other teams we are normally much quicker to find the answer to what other teams are doing.

They deserved the win, they played it really well, we just have to be better.

What went wrong in your pistol rounds?

Not winning a single pistol the entire series is rough. I think they were just better at trading in those pistol rounds. It’s really hard for one person with a pistol to kill a bunch of people when they were all running in. It felt like on our attacks we would get the bomb down, and they would just retake with good trades. 

Were you surprised at how much of a threat TenZ was with the team on such short notice?

I think everyone knows that TenZ is one of the best players out there, that is no secret. Even though he hasn’t been playing competitively for a while, the guy literally was solo carrying a team through most of his pro career. So now that you add him onto a team that has the best structure in the game, they definitely have such a good core and good ideas on how this game is supposed to be played. It just makes them better.

I think you could have added anyone into the Sentinels and they still would be a very good team, they just so happened to get one of the best players in the game. So Touche, GG well played.

While you lost today, FaZe has looked really strong during this tournament overall. What do you think makes FaZe such a strong team? 

What makes our team great is that we have a playstyle that is unlike these other teams and although sentinels found out an answer for it, I still think that we just needed to adapt faster and make changes and maybe win some pistol rounds, and it could have gone a different way potentially.

If you look at Haven, 13-8 score, we lost three post-plants that i felt were in our favor and we also lost both pistol rounds. That could have easily been a win right there. But it didn’t happen, there is no point in dwelling in the past. But I don’t think the way we play is bad, I think the way we play is hard to deal with. We just need to make changes faster. 

The next stage of the VCT masters will be in person in Iceland. Are you excited to see the return of LAN events? 

I want to make this LAN so bad. I haven’t played at a LAN in forever. I have never been known as an online player, so the fact that I am doing good right now online gives me a lot of confidence on LAN. I literally played only LAN for three years straight in the Overwatch League. I thrive big time off the crowd, and I never get nervous there. I lock in and feed off the energy of the crowd. 

I cannot wait for LAN. I know a lot of these players that are in the scene right now, especially these tier 2 CS pros, they are going to be so bad, so bad at LAN. I cannot wait. 

That will be the first international event where we can see NA versus other regions. Do you think NA’s style of play will be better than EU and the other regions?

I think NA is definitely the top region. I know some people say that we are not, there is a lot of competition in NA, I feel like these other regions don’t have the same thing. We can’t really say, you know, but I feel like everyone looks at how these European teams play and they say “Oh look at how structured they are” and it's very much like CS. But this game is not CS, not by any means.

The Sentinels today didn’t beat us by playing CS, they were definitely aggressive as well. And If you look at it, a lot of these teams doing well are aggressive. Even Envy, we kind of smacked them up, but they are a pretty aggressive team. Look at Food and Kaboose and the plays they make, they don’t ever really sit back and default for a minute straight like 100 Thieves or something. 

I think aggression in this game is really good, mainly because of the abilities. They help you get into this explosive aggression that you can do and really take over.

You have been a prominent player in multiple esports now, becoming the king of Overwatch and then transitioning now to VALORANT. What do you want your legacy in esports to be?

I want to win VALORANT worlds. Even if we lose this tournament coming up, the bigger picture is at the end of the road. I want to be the one that holds up that trophy and wins the championship for VALORANT. I want to be that player, I want to be known as a player on the team that did that.

In terms of my overall story, early on in my gaming career, I was like a big troll, and everyone knows that I cheated and got banned from ESEA. I hope they see that people can change and some people make stupid mistakes when they are young.

Look at all the good I have done now, including doing stuff for charity and mental health and stuff. I did a charity campaign for mental health called the Babybay challenge, and it really exploded. So the fact that I got this platform that I was given by the fans and everyone that supports me is really cool.