FaZe name enkay J head coach after missing the Cologne Major

FaZe has a permanent head coach again. The organization named Niclas "enkay J" Krumhorn to lead its Counter-Strike team on Thursday, April 16, 2026, HLTV reported the same day. The 36-year-old German takes a seat that had been filled on an interim basis since March 16, when FaZe and Filip "NEO" Kubski parted ways after nearly three years.

He arrives at an unusual point of the team's calendar. For the first time since FaZe entered Counter-Strike in 2016, there is no Major to prepare for. The team failed to qualify for the IEM Cologne Major, which ended a run of 16 consecutive appearances at the game's championship tournaments, according to HLTV. The new coach starts with two tournaments in the United States, and without the event the whole spring was spent chasing.

HLTV, reports of March 16 and April 16, 2026. The 31 days run from March 16 to April 16.

What FaZe announced

The title is head coach, with no interim label attached. In Counter-Strike, the head coach is the staff member who prepares the team's game plan and stands behind the five players during matches. FaZe had left that post without a permanent holder for a month.

When NEO left on March 16, the organization said analyst Dominik "GruBy" Swiderski would fill in while it explored its options for the future. An analyst studies opponents and the team's own matches, and GruBy moved up from that role for the time being. The appointment of April 16 is the answer to the question FaZe left open that day.

The announcement concerns the coach's seat only. On the day of the appointment, HLTV lists the line-up as Finn "karrigan" Andersen, David "frozen" Čerňanský, Helvijs "broky" Saukants, Jakub "jcobbb" Pietruszewski and Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken. FaZe has announced no change among the five, and HLTV's report gives no length for the coach's contract.

A month between two coaches

The 31 days between the two head coaches decided FaZe's season. The team played in four tournaments in that time, and its place at the Major depended on the results.

The first was BLAST Open Rotterdam. FaZe went out on March 20 with a defeat to TYLOO in a best-of-three, a match won by the first team to take two maps. FaZe lost the first map, Mirage, 11-13, won the second, Ancient, 13-8, and lost the decider, Overpass, 11-13. HLTV counted the team's record for 2026 at three series won and eleven lost after that match, against three and nine on the day NEO left. Karrigan said afterward that a FaZe side that failed to qualify would not have deserved its place at the Major, HLTV reported.

The second was DraculaN Season 6, a Romanian event that HLTV presented as a route toward a Major invitation. It beat aimclub 2-0 on March 30, then lost 1-2 to Passion UA and 0-2 to fnatic on March 31. The second defeat came in the lower bracket, the half of the draw where a further loss means elimination. Fnatic won the two maps 13-6 and 13-5. FaZe finished between ninth and twelfth place, and HLTV noted that the win over aimclub was only its fourth series win of the year.

That left one last route. FaZe entered HLC Belgrade PRO, a tournament in Serbia that ended before the deadline, and gave up its first two matches at PGL Bucharest, which overlapped with it, to be able to play there. The team came through the group stage and reached the grand final with 2-0 wins over BEE, Drama, CYBERSHOKE and illwill, HLTV reported. On April 5, it lost that final 1-2 to BIG. FaZe took the first map, then lost Overpass 11-13 and Anubis 3-13.

The day after the Belgrade final, FaZe rejoined PGL Bucharest for the one match it had left. The opening phase there was a Swiss stage, in which a team is eliminated once it reaches three losses, and the two forfeits already counted as two of them. Inner Circle, ranked 53rd by HLTV, won 2-0. FaZe trailed 2-10 at halftime on the first map, Nuke, and let a 6-0 lead slip on the second, Mirage. It left the tournament in 15th-16th place, last of the field.

A Major streak that stops at 16

The defeat in Belgrade settled the question of the Major. Majors are the championship tournaments of Counter-Strike 2, the game published by Valve, and their places are invitations. For Cologne, the 32 teams were set by the April update of the Valve Regional Standings, Valve's monthly ranking of teams, which includes a list for each region. Valve released that update on April 6, and HLTV described it as the one that decided the Major.

Europe received the most places, split between the three stages that cut the field down before the playoffs: six European teams enter directly in Stage 3, five in Stage 2 and six in Stage 1.

FaZe is not among the European teams. The last place still open in the region went to SINNERS, HLTV reported on April 5, a first Major for that organization. The Belgrade final was FaZe's last chance before the invitation deadline of April 6.

HLTV publishes its own world ranking, in which FaZe was still 11th on March 30 and on April 6. That ranking is a separate one from Valve's standings, and only Valve's decides the invitations.

The Major itself will be played from June 2 to 21, 2026, in Cologne, Germany, with a prize pool of US$1.25 million, according to its organizer, ESL. Under NEO, the team finished runner-up at three of the four Majors played in Counter-Strike 2 during his time, among them the one in Budapest, HLTV wrote on March 16.

The bench enkay J comes from

The new coach was available because his previous team had changed course. On March 11, ENCE benched its entire Counter-Strike roster and its coaching staff and made all of them available for transfer, HLTV reported that day. The Finnish organization said it would rebuild around Finnish players. In its statement, it explained that it had spent heavily on international rosters able to compete at the top, and that this had become harder to sustain.

Enkay J had been ENCE's head coach since September 2024. The team won one tournament HLTV names under him, Elisa Masters Espoo 2024. It stood 67th in HLTV's ranking of March 9, two days before the benching, and had not been in the top 20 since the first half of 2024.

His earlier posts cover both sides of a coaching staff. HLTV lists him as an analyst for MOUZ, Envy and G2, and as the coach of ALTERNATE aTTaX, Sprout, BIG and Entropiq. BIG is also the team that beat FaZe in the Belgrade final eleven days before the appointment.

Enkay J had been looking for a new challenge since March, HLTV wrote.

The team he takes over

The roster he inherits is the one in which Twistzz and jcobbb replaced EliGE and rain, a change that did not improve results, HLTV wrote on March 16. FaZe has not found the level of its Budapest final in 2026. Before NEO's exit, the team had gone out in the group stage of every tournament it had entered this year.

The ranking shows the slide of the past month. FaZe was 11th in HLTV's list on March 16, the day NEO left, and held that place through the rankings of March 30 and April 6. On April 13, three days before the appointment, it was 14th.

The Bucharest match gives a picture of where the five stand individually. Against Inner Circle, karrigan, Twistzz and broky finished with ratings of 1.36, 1.11 and 1.11 on HLTV's scale, while frozen and jcobbb ended at 0.80 and 0.51.

The players did not expect the first change of coach. HLTV reported on March 17 that karrigan said NEO's removal had come as a surprise to the team so close to the Major.

Fort Worth, then Atlanta

Two events remain on FaZe's schedule, and HLTV called them the team's last two tournaments of the season. Both are in the United States.

The first is BLAST Rivals in Fort Worth, Texas, an eight-team tournament that runs until May 3. FaZe opens on April 29, thirteen days after the appointment, against Natus Vincere, which HLTV ranked second in the world on April 6. The draw placed the two in Group B with FURIA, ranked third, and GamerLegion, ranked 20th. The winner of each group goes straight to the semifinals. The teams that finish second and third play the quarterfinals, so one team in four goes home after the groups.

The second is IEM Atlanta, from May 11 to 17. ESL announced it as a 16-team event with US$1 million in winnings.

After Atlanta, the calendar turns to Cologne. The Major begins on June 2, sixteen days after the last day in Atlanta, and FaZe will not be in the field.

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