FalleN: "Stewie and tarik can be the type of players they want to be"

MIBR captain Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo has played down claims that Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik have not been able to replicate their Cloud9 form in his team.

The comments follow recent remarks from Liquid talent Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken, who told reporters in a media conference call while at ELEAGUE Premier that he believed the American pair's playstyle had "changed in a pretty negative way" since joining MIBR and that they seemed "lost" after being "forced to play passively".

Since bringing in Stewie2K, in late March, the Brazilian team have only once been able to reach the semi-finals at a big event. In tarik's first event playing under MIBR, ELEAGUE Premier, the team went out 5th-6th after twice losing to Liquid, who would go on to finish in second place.

But FalleN rejects suggestions that he is not giving the former Cloud9 pair the freedom to play the game the way they want to, even though he admits that the system MIBR have in place is slightly different from the one they were used to in their previous team.

"In a way he [Twistzz] is right," FalleN said in an interview with draft5.gg. "Every time you join a new team you have to adapt to the way the other guys want you to play.

"But at the same time we try to see what the player likes to do, what he is good and not good at, so everyone is adapting, and it is a fact that the freedom they had in other teams is slightly different from the one they have in this team.

"Only time will tell whether that is good or bad, we are still trying to get everything going and we are testing some things.

"What I can say is that, inside the team, they have the freedom to do what they want, ever since we started practising they have had the freedom to be the type of players they want to be.

"It is all about what the team needs and what we think that is the right thing at that time."

After a two-year period without a coach, the Brazilian team decided to hire the services of renowned analyst Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović. Questioned about the move, FalleN heaped praise on the Serbian, who, however, was not the only option that the team had in mind.

"We are excited and we really trust his work," he added. "We will give our best to win titles again as quickly as possible.

"Finding a coach in Brazil would be hard, because we need someone who speaks English well, so the options would be zews and peacemaker.

"zews is with Liquid, so he was not an option. We did consider peacemaker, but in the end the team decided not to go for him at this time, even though he is a great guy, I really like him and he knows a lot about CS.

"We know YNk knows a lot about CS from the analysis he has done, he is someone that we really identify with when we listen to him, so he was one of the main options, the others were just speculation and there was nothing really concrete."

MIBR will make their first appearance after the player break at the ZOTAC Cup Masters, a $300,000 event that will be held from August 24-26 in Hong Kong.