exit: "Getting to my first Major by beating Imperial is a dream come true and I can't describe it in words"

An ecstatic Raphael "⁠exit⁠" Lacerda sat down for an interview after MIBR became the first team to secure their spot at the upcoming PGL Major in Antwerp.

MIBR punched their ticket for the PGL Major in Antwerp with a 2-1 victory over the Brazilian legends of Imperial, after which exit sat down with HLTV to talk about the feat. The final victory to secure their spot at the Major came after two close best-of-one matches in the opening day of the Americas RMR against 9z, whom they beat 16-13 on Dust2 followed by a triple-overtime affair against paiN on Vertigo, which ended 25-23.

The 25-year-old player talked about MIBR's run at the Americas RMR and their matches played, the team's sky high confidence coming into the tournament in a year that has so far gone in crescendo for the Brazilian team following the addition of Bruno "⁠BIT⁠" Fukuda Lima as head coach, as well as what's to come for his squad, including their final match at the RMR for a Legends spot and beyond.

You've gone 3-0 to qualify for the Major and you're fighting for a Legends spot now. Did you expect this?

To be honest, I expected to qualify for the Major, but I knew it was going to be hard. Which it was. But we knew we can beat anyone here because we're playing so well. Our coach [BIT] is helping us so much, he's bringing us everything we need, that's why I was so confident to qualify — and we did. I didn't expect it to be 3-0, I knew that we could lose a match, although our confidence wouldn't be lowered. But 3-0? That was in my dreams and we did it.

Speaking of coaching, can you tell me a bit about the dynamic with BIT and nak?

BIT is our head coach, he's with us day by day. When he came to the team he was just watching our matches, what we do, to get to know us, but now he's the guy that does most of the things that we do on the server. We just have to shoot.

nak, he likes to work with BIT watching some demos or trying to get some new game metas. Outside of the game, he's a great guy for the team. His energy is awesome and having him here is so good for us.

Tell me about getting the 3-0 against Imperial. The core of that squad was the big Brazilian team that brought the MIBR brand back. You beat them to get the spot at the Major now. What does that mean for you, symbolically?

They are the legends from Brazil, they're the biggest players that we ever had and we knew that. Back in 2016-2017 I watched all of their games. I was watching them saying to myself, 'oh, I want this for my life.' Now, getting to my first Major by beating them is a dream come true and I can't describe it in words.

You opened against 9z with a 16-13, then had a triple overtime against paiN, and a three map series today against Imperial. Tell me about that journey.

We beat great teams, 9z is a great team from South America. They played really well and we knew that our match-up against them was going to be very hard. We didn't start well, it was 0-6, but the key for us was communication. Our communication was always like, 'let's chill guys, if we do what we did in practice we can beat everyone here.' nak was behind us saying that stuff and he did a really good job to make us calm and confident.

We brought that to the paiN match-up and against them it was so good. It was a good match. Everyone made mistakes, everyone made good plays, and we knew that the match could have gone either way. It's a Brazilian match-up, so it's always a pleasure to play it.

Today we just said, 'OK, let's have some fun.' The pressure was on them, they're the legends, we're not the legends, and that's it. We were always confident, we lost the first map but we said 'if we do good on Vertigo and Nuke we can beat them' because they're both strong maps in our map pool.

How do you feel going into the decider match for the Legends spot at the Major?

FURIA is the favorite to be playing against us, and if they play against us they will be favorite to win, but we don't want to think about that. We just want to enjoy ourselves, watch today's game, fix some mistakes and try to get on our A game. If we're on a good day, we can beat them and get the Legends spot.

Complexity, they're a strong team in NA. They're the best right now along with Liquid, so if we play against them it will be a hard match-up. We've practiced against them and they're playing really well right now.

You've been in great form lately. Can you run me through the team's progression from the beginning of the year to now?

At the beginning of the year we came to Europe to play BLAST Spring Groups with our stand-in brnz4n and we didn't have a coach, so it was so hard for us. Everyone had to do 110%, so it was a hard time without chelo and a coach. WOOD7 had to do a lot of stuff because he didn't have anyone behind him, but we played some good matches. We won against NAVI and Complexity.

When chelo came back, he's one of the best players in Brazil, I think he's in the top 3 right now. He's so good, he's a beast. He bring an energy to the team that is very rare. He's a very good guy, always screaming and hyping the team up. He's never like: [in a low, monotone voice] 'OK, let's go guys.' He's always cheering and that's very good for the team.

Then BIT came in and as I said before, he's a monster. He's bringing a lot of experience. He knows a lot about the game and he's always in the meta. He's always watching... I saw him watch like ten or fifteen demos in a day. He's a beast, man. He's very good.

We played some tournaments in North America and we got better, fixed our mistakes, and that was so good for us because we played like 50 matches in a month. It was so good because we played tournaments, fixed our mistakes, won some tournaments, and when we came here our confidence was so high.

You're flying back to North America for the Showdown, do you know what the plans are for the Major after that?

We have a couple of tournaments in North America, BLAST and another tournament, then we're coming back to practice in Europe and play the Major. BLAST ends on the 30th and we're coming back on the 31st. We just want to be back here.

Did you have some time to prepare in Europe before the RMR?

We had three days. We came to Romania and were at a LAN house, Marsupy Gaming, near here. It was so good for us because we traveled for two days to get here. We were so jet lagged the first two days here, so it was really good to be here already. We had three days to play there and two days here in the practice rooms, so it was five days of practice, although one of them wasn't a whole day because we had to do the media day.

You came in already confident, and this must also be a great confidence boost. So where do you see your progression? How far is this team going now?

We have five great players, everyone knows how to play the game. Now if we want to go far we have to have a good mindset. I don't know how to say it in English, but we can't put negative things in our team from outside of the game. If we do that we can destroy the team. We're working so well inside the game.

I'm not saying we're doing that, because we're in a good way, but in the past I had teams in which we were good, but outside of the game we weren't good and it was kind of destroying us. If this doesn't happen to us, I believe the sky is the limit for us.