zews: "I think everyone is just bad right now and I just want to take their place"

The veteran Brazilian coach touched on his return to coaching after his retirement.

Fluxo claimed the last qualifying spot from BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Americas RMR after defeating Paquetá in the fifth-place decider match. The Adriano "⁠WOOD7⁠" Cerato-led squad started off their journey at the Regional Major Ranking event with narrow wins over yur and BESTIA before a sweep at the hands of paiN slowed them down temporarily. Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado was able to keep his young team focused ahead of the last fixture, beating Gustavo "⁠yel⁠" Knittel and company to qualify for the coach's sixth Valve-sponsored event (eighth total).

zews' qualification for the Paris Major is a significant achievement, especially after spending the majority of 2022 on the sidelines after suffering a life-threatening heart attack. The veteran coach briefly came out of retirement last year to help O PLANO at the Road to Rio RMR before finding a permanent home with Fluxo earlier in 2023. The 35-year-old helped the organization qualify for its first-ever CS:GO Major after missing out on the qualification cycle for IEM Rio last October.

Shortly after Fluxo's decider match, zews took some time to speak about his return to the Majors, his team's qualification run, and the general state of the Brazilian scene.

zews, congratulations, you're at a Major again. How does it feel man?

Amazing, it's a mix of emotions, I think I said it on the broadcast, but last Major.. I was retired man, that's just the honest truth, I thought I was done with all of this. And I went to help out a friend with O PLANO, I couldn't even be behind them, and I remember the last day, the rollercoaster of emotions. Like, so much happiness for all of my ex-teammates that we built a history together, and we built what kickstarted Brazil, and they all made it and even though I was just there to fill in a slot and be friendly, I couldn't help but get that competitive side in me fired up that I was the only one that wasn't there.

Now this time it's the same mix of emotions but swapped, because I'm really sad, truly, that they aren't there but I am, and I'm so happy for my boys. It's just crazy, thank god I have a new heart for this.

Working with this team specifically, what has that been like with some of the players who have come up, ones that you hadn't really worked with before as well?

It's a completely different story than anything I've ever lived, or at least over the past seven years ever since I came onto the international scene. I know where we are, we're a younger bunch of guys, a lot more inexperienced, they still have the entire world ahead of them mostly and all the experiences aren't there. My job and what I want right now is to pass that experience on to them, give this calmness to close out games in these hard moments, gain that experience. I love working with people that just want it so much, it can even be detrimental to the game sometimes, but the heart's there and that's what matters to me so I think it's just amazing. I'm loving it, I never know what my future is going to be, but I'm so happy right now.

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Can you walk me through this match a little bit? On the first map you had a pretty good lead and then it slipped away a little bit, then you ended up closing it out. Can you tell me how the game unfolded from your perspective from behind the team?

We honestly had a really good game plan coming into this, we focused mostly on us but we know what they wanted to do and in the beginning, it was that. We started fired up, yesterday we were very cold, like we were completely out of the game, today I wasn't going to let that happen and we started well. But, the moment we lost one round or another, we... it's not that we deviated from the plan, but we started trying to come up with solutions that we hadn't practiced. Yeah that works sometimes, but we're inexperienced in those points, so we'd mess up a smoke or forget a molotov, or didn't let some information go by because it was something that wasn't in our routine, and we started giving up those leads. That happened on Overpass, and thank god we had a trial run before where our resiliency is kind of the biggest thing, and the same happened on Nuke. It's get a lead, come back, make the necessary rounds and then the CT side, thankfully it was a little more safe and towards the end when I thought we were going to go that way, cut it off immediately it was like no, let's just do it simple, and we're able to close it down and not lose our economy.

As you said, you were retired for a bit, you came back briefly with O PLANO during that run, but now you're fully back. How do you feel about the way that Counter-Strike has evolved in the time that you were away till now?

I honestly feel, like this is going to sound horrible, but I think everything is kinda the same. I know the strats are faster, reactions are there, but I feel like teams because we haven't had an era, there's a lot less structure. That's just my honest gut feeling, I see teams that... that's why there's no one consistent, and so I think everyone is just bad right now and I just want to take their place, and soon enough we'll get there.

Is that something you think this team can carry into what is the next iteration of the game with CS2 coming up, do you think that might affect the team at all? I'm not sure if you've played it.

Yeah, I got the beta on day two so I just briefly touched on it, I thought it was fun. My honest opinion is that everything is going to change, as much as it seems simple. It kind of reminds me of VALORANT, the first two years we're going to see the old faces, then there's going to come a lot of new faces that grew up in this chaos, so my advice out there — the younger the better. They're going to adapt faster and they're going to come naturally from the game, old boys better watch out. Our jobs are on the line now.

As one of the newer Brazilian teams on the block, how do you think the old guard has changed? We had Imperial here who ended up going out, but you have FURIA who qualified, you have paiN who is doing really well with biguzera leading, so what is your perspective on the scene as a whole?

I think it looks promising. We're still a ways away from being the top contenders, I think the sooner everyone grasps that, the easier it is to transition into that era. The issue with Brazil is we have a lot of experience, but it's apart. I'm not saying that they should be together, but they should be doing this, they should be passing down the knowledge now to the next generation. It's something that didn't happen in NA, unfortunately, where you had people just leave the game and didn't pass down the knowledge.

So if we want the Brazilian region to be competitive, FalleN, myself, cold, TACO, fnx, fer, we all gotta pass down what we learned and of course, these young guns, they come fired up. They're complete in the player sense, they know the game even better than us sometimes in the movements, small details, but closing out games, experience, how to play an advantage not give, being very kind and careful with the situations just strafing, because we live in a TikTok generation, people can't stand still for 15 seconds. So I think that's where the future is headed, it's these new players that are coming up with a bunch of talent, and you have the old dogs that are on our way out but hopefully with good intentions, just passing it down.

Do you think there is a reason, or do you have a reason why some of those collaborations haven't happened as much and are only now coming together?

Players will always be players, they'll do something on intuition, now I think this lineup will work or I want to play with him, and right now we live in a time where financials are different. Some organizations can't buy people out, contracts are really expensive, Brazilian reais are 5 to 1 so it gets even more expensive for the Brazilian region but I think there's something everywhere, all buyouts are crazy so it's hard to put the pieces together that you want. If we were able to put down certain pieces together in Brazil, like the time when I came up, LG/SK, we were the Brazilian national squad, whoever we said, 'come,' they would come to our team. This doesn't happen anymore, so it's kind of spread apart. I feel that's why we are where we are kind of a thing, and I don't see it changing anytime soon if I'm honest.

Now that you're done with the tournament, it did start with some issues, I know there was a lot of frustration from a lot of people. Just looking back on that now, do you have anything to say regarding that?

Yeah, quite a bit. I'm not going to put people on blast over this honestly, it was really badly run in some cases. A lot of divergences what one team can do and another can't, headsets that don't work, yeah, it wasn't ideal. I know the people here were trying, but maybe it was too big a bite to do all these tournaments at once. BLAST has amazing production but I think outsourcing everything is a problem, especially when each game is one rule then something changes for the next one, that should never be the competitive [?] and I hate that there is always going to be an asterisk next to the qualifications over this.

Now that the team is heading to Paris, a really big tournament obviously, taking a look at some of the teams that have already qualified and that tournament as a whole, what does it mean for you and Fluxo as a whole to participate in that last big event?

For everyone it's amazing to be a part of history, the last event for some of these guys, the first time that they made it to have themselves eternalized. For Fluxo as an organization, I know it's a mark, they're a gigantic organization. They may seem new because they come from different esports in Brazil, but they have a gigantic fanbase so it means the world to be inside the game. They are great at their jobs and what they do, and they are really great support considering how everyone else in Brazil treats us, they give us a lot of respect, so shout out Fluxo for that.

I think that the teams that are qualifying to the Major kinda signify that change I was talking about — tier one is on lockdown right now, you don't get in, so when you have these Majors and qualifiers, some of the big dogs get left out because they see that hey, the teams that everyone thinks are tier two and three, they're actually not that bad and they're to outcast people. So props to Valve on that one, I know people put Valve on blast quite a lot but the way that these are done, it still gives a chance, I just hope the rest of the circuit takes the same route and there is always at least a wildcard or some way.

As a team that isn't a partner in these leagues, how much frustration does that cause given the inability to participate in some of these events?

Immense! Because it's just one spot, and you have to play best-of-one qualifiers online which, hey, you can lose to almost anyone in a best-of-three nowadays because of the difference between tier one and tier three, as I said I don't think it's that big or as big as people make it out to be. And to have best-of-one qualifiers makes it even worse, and then you don't give spots like right here, this was hell, like two losses and you're out? So many teams that could have been there, aren't, and some of that is in spots, some of that is in the format. I just wish that we could see some best-of-threes, larger formats like TIs [The International] where you actually give people the chance. If this is our World Cup, let's make it, and like I said for the rest of the circuit if someday we get there, it would be amazing, but I just know how the industry works unfortunately, I know that there's a lot of money involved and franchising is good for the organizations.