After a hopeful, yet far from perfect 2024, at the start of 2025 FaZe Clan “shocked the world” with the blockbuster signing of 28-year-old Grand Slam Champion and 6x HLTV Top 20 North American legend – Jonathan “ELiGE” Jablonowski, and the idea was quite simple. Bringing over one of the best riflers in the world to further strengthen and sharpen up a team that had just lost one of its stars in Robin “ropz” Kool, but wanted to surpass its form from last year and lift trophies throughout 2025, as well as giving said player an opportunity to materialize his prime form into significant achievements.
Sadly, as the season progressed, FaZe Clan would struggle to find the balance between the aggressive rifling, set ideology and strong character of their newly acquired superstar and what the team was already used to – changes seemed inevitable. With Helvijs “broky” Saukants’s removal and then re-addition to the team it was obvious that changing the AWP-er was not going to resolve the issues, that were holding FaZe from achieving anything more than a 4th place finish at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025, 3rd place at the PGL Bucharest 2025 & the Quarter-Finals of both the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 & IEM Cologne 2025.
And with ELiGE (1.11 rating) marking his worst year statistically since 2016 (1.05) and seemingly not being able to unleash his full potential on a team that was looking more and more stagnant by the day, earlier today FaZe Clan announced that ELiGE would go over to the bench of the team as per a mutual decision from both sides, with his replacement being the 21-year-old Polish prodigy and ex-Betclic (Apogee) & 9INE player – Jakub “jcobbb” Pietruszewski.
The new generation is here in FaZe! It’s a privilege to have him join us and it will shake something up role-wise and there will be a transition period. I’m excited to start a new process and looking forward to playing. Go give Kuba the Polska Gurum – via karrigan on X (Twitter)
But who is jcobbb, why did FaZe pick him and is it possible for a 21-year-old Polish Tier 2/3 player to succeed where ELiGE failed to? These are just a small part of the questions that will hopefully find their answers in this article.
Who is jcobbb?
In the Polish scene, Jakub “jcobbb” Pietruszewski is what people would often call a “Faceit Demon”. From a very early age, the Pole would always be one of those youngsters that veteran players wanted to avoid playing against on Faceit as pugging was always his main forte and with a record of over 2000 maps on Mirage in CS:GO and under 400 on any other map, the reason for that reputation is not too hard to discover.
Regardless of participating in multiple mix projects in the Polish scene and playing multiple Open Qualifiers for events such as European Development Championship, V4 Future Festival & DreamHack Open back in 2021, jcobbb was never a player known to indulge into the team aspect of Counter-Strike and would refuse multiple offers for trials in decent Polish teams in CS:GO, which would then be the main reason the doubt and speculations from many veterans and players.
In the early days of his “career” in CS:GO, similarly to players like Robin “ropz” Kool, the young gun would often times be suspected in cheating by many of his countrymen as for a player with almost no team & LAN experience, he was, quite frankly – too good. Being a constant part of the top charts of the Faceit ELO leaderboard in Poland with an above-average headshot percentage & amazing stats, jcobbb would just make people scratch their heads to such an extent, that some would start conspiring about him not even wanting to pursue professional play. A theory, further supported by the fact that he had never participated even in a single season of ESEA Leagues prior to joining 9INE in 2023.
That 9INE team, however, was proof that the young man was not shying away from competition, but simply waiting for the right opportunity to showcase his ability. Unlike many other offers which he turned down with no remorse, the one from the Polish powerhouse got jcobbb instantly interested. Not only was 9INE a team place in the HLTV Top 30 at the time, but many of the players had already spent multiple hours pugging with the youngster prior to his signing, making the notorious shy jcobbb a lot more comfortable with accepting such an offer for his first professional team.
Sadly, his time on 9INE wouldn’t last long, as the team played only 2 events – YaLLa Compass Fall 2023 (2nd) & ESL Polish Championship Autumn 2023, before the trio of hades, Kylar & Goofy got transferred over to ENCE, marking the end of jcobbb’s first professional team, before the real journey had even begun.
At this point, his reputation as a young star was starting to speak for itself, especially in the Polish scene. After playing with such a respected lineup of players, all doubts were out of the way and people could finally see him for the player he was – a spectacular aimer.
I gave an interview while signing this [Betclic] roster saying that jcobbb shoots as hard as Twistzz or NiKo. When I saw him in practice, and that was practice, of course, but when I saw him shooting in practice, it was incredible. Insane. Like, I haven’t seen anything like that, jcobbb’s coach in Betclic, Jędrzej “Bogdan” Rokita, said in an interview for HLTV.
Jcobbb’s best quality was undeniably his aim. He is the type of player that one could definitely “feel” in the server and there aren’t many Polish players to think otherwise. With that being said, only a couple of months were needed before the youngster got signed by Betclic in November of 2024. In the Polish lineup, initially featuring players like Prism, Demho, hfah & hypex, jcobbb was the star of the show. Being the highest rated player of the team (1.18) in 2024 & 2025 (1.13) whilst also being the most aggressive player on CT-sides & Top 2 on T-sides, he proved himself to be a true aim-machine in the traditionally fast and “freedom-loving” Polish style of play.
But the real breakthrough didn’t come until the Closed Qualifier for the PGL Bucharest 2025, where with a remarkable 1.23 rating and solid performances over teams like Fnatic, BetBoom & OG, jcobbb would end up as the highest rated player of his team, single handedly pushing them through to the main event which was, and still is, his first and only Tier 1 LAN tournament.
In Bucharest, Betclic could not make it out of the Main Swiss stage but took some big swings before going down. Jcobbb himself did not have his best event ever, but was near the top of the charts in upset wins over The MongolZ (45-29 score, 1.45 rating) & Astralis (34-28 score, 1.25) further disproving the rumours of him not being able to deliver on LAN. Unfortunately, Betclic was never able to replicate that success and take things to the next level and amongst the turmoil of shaky online results and roster changes, Jakub could not get to the big stage once again until the end of the season, but he was definitely able to put himself out there and land a spot on the radar of many, one of them being the legendary IGL & captain of FaZe Clan – Finn “karrigan” Andersen, especially considering the convenient coincidence of the Dane’s wife, Anja Suder, being Betclic’s sports psychologist.
Ultimately, one can only speculate about how a player like jcobbb would do in Tier 1 Counter-Strike. Someone with a reputation of being introverted, quiet and who has never before played in an English-speaking environment, which could raise some serious question marks.
However, with the presence of a fellow Pole in FaZe’s coach & Polish legend – Filip “NEO” Kubski, the supposing and allegedly good experience of working alongside karrigan’s wife & his aggressive style, aligning with many of the duties of his predecessor on FaZe, yet susceptible of guidance and minor reshaping approach to the game, jacobbb has all the tools necessary to succeed as a FaZe player and in merely 3 years, turn from a “Polish Faceit Demon” to one of the most exciting young aimers in Tier 1 Counter-Strike.
