arT on being last Brazilian team at Major: "There's a lot of pressure and responsibility"

The Brazilian IGL talks about André "⁠drop⁠" Abreu and FURIA's chances at the Major ahead of the third round of the Legends Stage.

FURIA started their Major run at the Legends Stage on Saturday, becoming the last Brazilian team alive following the eliminations of Sharks, paiN and GODSENT, with only Liquid's Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo remaining as a standalone representative of the Latin American country alongside FURIA.

The first day of play wasn't an easy one for Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan and company as they faced two teams that were broken in after competing at the Challengers Stage, Astralis and MOUZ, and although FURIA lost their opener against the Danes they were able to bounce back against the international mixture to end the day with an even record.

Ahead of the second day of play, where they will face no other than FalleN himself and Liquid at 12:45 , arT shared his views on how FURIA feels going into the tournament, the preparations that went into getting ready for the Major, the addition of drop, or how Marcos "⁠tacitus⁠" Castilho is filling in for Nicholas "⁠guerri⁠" Nogueira, among other topics.

How has FURIA been getting ready for the biggest event in two years?

Our preparation has been very intense, we had to play the RMR qualifier so we started our preparation before that. After we qualified we traveled to Europe to bootcamp before the Major and we didn't play any events just to prepare. The process differs from time to time, now we're trying to adapt a lot of new stuff to the team because drop just joined.

We're adapting new roles, new setups, it's a process to try and get more chemistry on the team. That's something we're lacking because of the player changes and the roles changing a lot, so I think that's what we're working on the most.

How does drop fit into the team?

He's very young so we're trying not to put too much pressure on him and we put him in situations where he doesn't have to take too much responsibility. On the CT side he's always with someone more experienced so we can help him out on the set-ups and guide him through the round in order for him to be more comfortable shooting and focusing on his aim.

On the T side he started as more of a support player, but I'm trying to put him more in an entry or trader role because his aim is very good. It's very crispy, that's something I want to use more so in some maps we're trying to put him in the front lines more. It's a process we're working on.

How has drop's composure been after his first matches at the Major? Are there some jitters? How has he been responding?

Surprisingly well, he achieved more consistency faster than I expected for such a young player from Brazil. In Brazil it's harder to be at the top level straight away when you go to Europe because you're not playing or practicing against the best teams, you're not playing FPL, so he's way behind in those terms and he's catching up very fast. He's very smart and his aim helps him a lot, so he's always learning and improving.

I was expecting him to be a bit worse in the tournament but it's being the other way around. He's always up, motivating the team, he sounds like he's very experienced, that's the impression you get if you hear his comms and look at his screen. He's gaining experience day by day.

After we lost the first match you'd expect him to be quieter in the second match, but he was extremely on the other side. He was talking a lot and taking responsibility on his shoulders, calling some aggressive set-ups that he doesn't usually call. I'm the one who's sometimes calling the set-ups and even more so the aggressive ones, but this time around he called for one or two of the more aggressive set-ups and I was surprised by that.

So where does FURIA sit among the Major teams? The way I see it is you have NAVI as favorites and then a really open pack waiting for them to slip, but if they do then it's kind of open.

I feel like NAVI and Gambit are, right now, at the top level. Barely so, but they are. NAVI is a little ahead than the other teams and I'd say that the other teams are very close together. Any team below NAVI and Gambit can beat each other at any time. FURIA can beat any other team, and any other team can beat us. So we're trying to bring some consistency, but we're all very stacked at the same level.

You played your first match against Astralis, run me through the key moments of the map.

We tried to bring fast-paced towards A for this fast-paced best-of-one, which definitely backfired on us because they had different plays than we expected and we struggled to get our economy together. We won like two rounds in the early stages but those rounds were supposed to be lost so we definitely struggled on the T side. It was based on the play style we chose for the game, it was wrong and that was completely my fault, I can say that easily.

We tried to show up in the latter stage of the half but they were way ahead. It got a bit harder to play because Magisk was pushing mid after the smoke and they were more loose because they had a good economy and momentum so we struggled to get back in our feet after the first three gun rounds we tried to play fast on A.

After that we go back to almost even on the score but we lost a four-man stack on A, we lost all of our guns but one and that was the most important round of the game, after that they were 14-10 and we were broke, that round decided it. Best-of-ones are always hard.

Then you played MOUZ, once again on Inferno. You started on the T side and took a lead at the half and then neutralized them on the CT side. What were the highlights there?

We had a set way to play against them, as we did against Astralis, the difference was that we managed to get some momentum early on. They won pistol, then 2-2 and 5-5, but we had momentum, we could burn their economy and I felt like we had some control of the rounds, whereas with Astralis they had control over the map.

The T side was a bit better than theirs, we had some fakes that worked and overall we played way better against MOUZ than Astralis. Our CT side on Inferno is always good, we're good at rotating and we understand the map, so we just played a good game.

Tacitus is standing behind you here since guerri can't be present. How is it working with him?

Tacitus is filling in for guerri, but more importantly he's helping us in the tactical sense of the game. He's our analyst, so he's always analyzing our game, which is very important for us because guerri can't be analyzing other teams, our strats and our players, so one more guy to help us with that is very important.

Tacitus is always trying to find new stuff and point our mistakes. He's very smart, as well, so it's very nice to have a conversation all three of us, about strats or the way we're playing or changing and adapting to new stuff. That's something we're trying to do now, to adapt to new set-ups, changing roles and positions. This process as a whole is way easier with him.

After your first day at the Major, what are the initial feelings like and what do you think the potential of this team is here?

It's hard to say, we feel very confident to play the Major, but not so prepared, I felt like we had a lot to catch up on and a lot of stuff to be better on because we felt like there were some gaps, we were making some mistakes that we just didn't have enough time to fix.

We feel confident to make it to the next stage, the playoffs, that's our main goal, but at the same time we know it's going to be hard because we're not at the top of our game. We see the reality that we're struggling a bit to get consistency, but we feel like we're good and can make it to the next stage, but we have to play very well. We can't make any mistakes. Like against Astralis, if you commit a mistake the game is over.

Best-of-threes, are you ready for them?

Definitely! [laughs] Hopefully soon. It's way better, you can commit more mistakes and then fix them later.

You're the last Brazilian team at the Major, there's FalleN in Liquid, of course, but as a team you're kind of the flag bearers of Brazil. How do you feel about that?

It's great to be representing Brazil, but at the same time it's sad that no other teams got out of the Challengers Stage because that would be awesome for the Brazilian scene.

Imagine if two more Brazilian teams like paiN, GODSENT or Sharks make it through, I think they would get more spots for Brazil for the next Major. But of course I'm very happy to represent Brazil. There's a lot of pressure and responsibility, but that's fine by me, even though I get way more hate now, but it's great.

Why do you say more hate?

You know, the Brazilian scene, they're very passionate about CS, so one mistake and they go all of the way in. [laughs] It's part of it, two sides of the same coin, but it's OK. I don't really care about the hate, it's something I deal with and it's fine.