FalleN: "I don't think we will pick anyone from FURIA; maybe if something changes on their part"

We spoke to Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo on the last day of IEM Chicago to ask him about MIBR's unexpected run to the semi-finals and their options when it comes to replacing Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David.

MIBR surprised most at IEM Chicago, advancing to the semi-finals after beating Envy and G2 in the group stage and taking a map off ENCE in the top-four stage before getting eliminated despite playing the tournament with Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado.

When the team came to do their media hour, we caught up with FalleN to ask about the run and the lack of pressure, and discuss MIBR's options for a new player.

You've certainly made it further than expected here in Chicago, what do you think was behind it?

I think we played some good CS, even though I saw some people going along the lines of that our opponents didn't play great and all those things, I think it's somehow our merit as well, we were hitting our shots, we had some gameplan, we studied our opponents and we showed up pretty well, mainly against G2 in the decider. It was great, playing with zews, playing under this new atmosphere, playing to really start something fresh, start something from zero, and I think it was a great feeling. Everyone is very excited for the future, everyone is excited about reinventing ourselves as players and as individuals, as well.

There is an argument to be made that it is all down to the lack of pressure in your team at the moment, how much does the atmosphere have to do with this result?

I think the lack of pressure is one factor, for sure, playing with zews we always have the excuse of 'hey, we had a coach, bro' (laughs), but this is just one factor, I think the factor that matters the most is that we are approaching CS in a different way than we were before. We are relearning and open to new ideas and open to new ways of playing. We tried to identify all the things over the last month that made us play a little bit depressed and a bit depressed as people, as well.

You can see by the way we play, by the way we used to play before, you can see the difference, it's pretty obvious. So we tried to identify all those problems and now that we have this chance to recreate everything and restart the project, we try to keep it in our way the best we can. If we see a negative influence or some bad behavior, it can be toxic to the team, so we're trying to avoid that as much as we can. I say that as one of those guys who probably did some of those problems, as well, it's not on one person, it's not only cold, it's just that the atmosphere overall that we created for ourselves wasn't the best. The way we are playing right now just shows that you need a good atmosphere to play good CS.

With coldzera out of the lineup, the old core has been disrupted, and a common criticism of the previous rosters has been that someone from the core had to go, even tarik said it - do you agree with that now?

The way we see it, definitely if you look for the 7 million possibilities in the world for this scenario, for sure there would be one where we fix ourselves and we put our heads where they should be, but it would probably be the hardest one, as well. You just go over some situations in life when staying together sometimes means it's hard to change some things. So, for sure, changing one piece of the core, it could have been me or fer, it was cold this time, definitely is the easier way to escape all that.

I think in the end, we could have made it work. Definitely, a lot of maturity would have been necessary from our members and a lot of self-reflection to really take a look inside all of us to understand what we're trying to achieve and how we want to do that. We failed over a couple of months to do that, and that's why I think getting to this situation was better for both parts. I think cold is a great player, he's probably one of the most talented players I've ever played with, he's a very obstinate guy, really passionate about the game, he really tries as hard as he can to be the best player he can, and he was great for the team for so long. He's a great guy, I think he's going to do great if any team picks him up. I think the team now has a chance to rebuild and I think we have a chance to be successful again, and I think cold will be successful, as well, so in the end, it's going to be great for both parties.

From talking to fer, you still haven't really found your fifth yet. Can you at least speak to what type of a player you're looking for and when you plan on finalizing that process?

Being completely honest, now we have some paths to go. We could either go for very upcoming talent, look for someone who no one would expect us to pick, and really try to build along with this guy. Or we could go for someone who already played with us before, or we could try one of those players that have been long in this scene but never played with us. Or we could try picking up a player from another team that doesn't really want to join us and all those things.

There are a lot of ways to go, but we're not really looking into it right now, what we are focusing more on is about rebuilding ourselves, the players we are playing with right now, and find the passion for this game again. Overall, we have been successful in that, we have seen fer play insanely well, being very happy about the team, and even as a person you can see the difference. He's being the guy we need him to be, that's the person we used to have, and the same goes for me, the same goes for the other members, so we're using these three tournaments — and it's going to end at the Major — to really find ourselves again. To find the fifth member is just going to be one piece of the puzzle.

Is there any chance that you could pick up someone from FURIA?

We definitely wanted to have some of the players from FURIA, we already tried this approach before, but they really are a lineup that wants to stay together, they are really passionate about the project they are building. They have a lot of faith in their team owners, so they don't really want to jump into another project, and we respect that, so I don't think we will pick anyone from FURIA. Maybe if something changes from their part, but I don't see it happening.