Rumors of FaZe Clan joining the pro Apex Legends scene have swirled for quite a while now. It doesn’t hurt that they now have multiple players who have played in North America’s ALGS Pro League between NICKMERCS and Eric “Snip3down” Wrona.
However, one slip of the tongue by Snip3down has set the competitive Apex community ablaze with rumors that FaZe might be considering signing a professional team. The potential team would include a possible full-time return to Apex by Snip3down, where he would compete alongside TSM’s Mac “Albralelie” Beckwith and SlurpeeG, who also competed in last year’s ALGS Pro League.
The possible leak came up yesterday when Snip3down joined Albralelie’s party before the ongoing FLL tournament, in which the two and SlurpeeG were playing together under the team name ASS—an acronym formed by the first initial of their three in-game handles. Snip3down can be heard talking about coaching and research practices before he begins to talk about how he had talked to FaZe Clan. “I did talk to FaZe. Everything’s totally fine with FaZe,” Snip3down says. “They’re totally down to get everyone—”
“I’m streaming, Snip3,” Albralelie quickly interjects, which stops the conversation almost immediately. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Snip3down says before laughter and awkward pauses fill the steam.
The comedy of the moment is only made greater by SlurpeeG entering the Discord call, hearing the laughter, and immediately assuming Albralelie and Snip3down had been making fun of him.
Clearly, there’s no confirmation that the trio will be signed as the new FaZe Clan Apex squad. But there are a few other indications that this could be the case outside of Snip3down referencing speaking to FaZe Clan about plans and Albralelie immediately cutting him off, indicating the discussion shouldn’t have been public. For one, Snip3down remains a FaZe Clan player, even though he no longer plays for FaZe’s Halo team and has been competing with eUnited. Team ASS has been competing consistently for over a month, and with the ALGS only weeks away, the three players continuing to play together, if they had no plans to continue as a team, wouldn’t make much sense.
In addition, the sleuths on the Competitive Apex subreddit have pointed out that there is still one invited team to North America’s Pro League that is still “To Be Announced.” While the team wouldn’t technically qualify for a Pro League invitation as a team based on the previously stated criteria for invitations, all three players competed in last year’s Pro League, and it would make sense for ALGS to offer the team a spot if they were attempting to court an organization as big as FaZe.
On paper, the team has serious potential. Both Snip3down and SlurpeeG have reputations as two of the more-fears controller fraggers in the game, while Albralelie remains a consensus pick for one of North America’s best all-around players. The question is how the team will gel, and how Albralelie will settle into the sole IGL role after competing with multiple teams in a hybrid fragger and sometimes-co-IGL position.
Still, if FaZe Clan wants to get into pro Apex, this is clearly the best free agent squad to do it with, short of buying out the contracts of Team Liquid. The ALGS Preseason qualifiers begin on Oct. 8. If Team ASS isn’t playing in them, a bit more smoke will be added to this fire.
