NEKIZ: "Brazilian teams try to be the best in Brazil, not in the world; it doesn't help the scene"

Legacy are now poised to play against one of Brazil's top domestic sides in the Americas RMR.

Since their inception as a five-man unit in August 2023, Legacy have struggled to make waves both domestically and abroad, with Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David and company often failing to secure deep runs across various online events and qualifiers.

The team's saving grace came in the form of qualification for PGL Major Copenhagen Americas RMR, with a 3-0 run through the South American closed qualifier inspiring some confidence in the team. Now in Monterrey, Legacy have gotten off to a mixed start at the all-important event, getting trounced by paiN in their opening match before rebounding with a hard-fought win over Nouns to avoid elimination.

Date	Matches
PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 Americas RMR
03/03/2024	Legacy 22:20 MIBR	Match

After securing victory over Nouns, Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato spoke with HLTV regarding their run at the event so far, his experience taking over the in-game leading role on Legacy, and the state of the Brazilian scene.

If you do not see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the full interview here.

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You've got your first win here. Not the greatest showing against paiN yesterday, and I wanted to start off with that game actually — why did you fall so flat?

I felt like they were super prepared for Overpass. I feel like they did a very good anti-stratting during this game. We knew that they were going to play Overpass because I had seen it on Steam, you know, you can see what maps teams are practicing, and I had seen they were practicing Overpass a lot, so I was like, 'Okay, let's try to force them to play Anubis or Inferno.' I couldn't, and that's why we lost, they did a very good anti-stratting and that's it.

Coming into today, Nouns won the first map and then you reverse-swept the series. Talk me through that win a bit, where you bounced back from losing the first map.

The thing is that we struggled a little bit on Vertigo during a couple of rounds that we should have won; I remember an anti-eco on B or something like that. Vertigo is not our best map right now, so that was unfortunate, but we won the best maps we're having right now. We won Overpass, Inferno is a very good map for us, we have a lot of others that I cannot talk about (smiles), but we are playing very well on those maps and we are super confident. We knew that we were not going to lose this series, even if we lost Vertigo.

You were mentioning that you took over in-game leading about four months ago. How has that transition been going for you on this team?

In the beginning, it was very hard to build the structure of the team. They were playing with TACO in one way, with coldzera in another, and to switch to the playstyle that I like takes a little while, you cannot just instantly change. In the beginning, it was very hard, in the first month or so, and right now it's getting better. The bootcamp was very good, I think we improved a lot, and right now we can show it. Now we're in the tournament, the first game was not us.

What is the structure that you like compared to what this team used to do?

In the previous team, the core liked to play a lot with tactics, and I prefer playing more in defaults. It takes a while for each player to know what to do, how to react during a default and have a strong default to punish other plays and other teams. We struggled a little bit just with that specific thing, and right now we're playing well.

After your period on paiN and then coming back, what has it been like working with this set of players, with coldzera and the change in talent?

They are very talented. I remember back in the day with GODSENT, they were super good. I cannot say anything about coldzera because we all know how good he is. The thing is that we have the perfect pieces for the team and they are playing very well right now, and I hope that I can manage them to go further and play better in the tournament.

When I was looking at some of your results before this event, it was hard to find consistency, but that was almost a trend for South American teams, everyone was beating everyone and FalleN even mentioned it in my interview today. Why are those results so dynamic, and where can you find that consistency that is lacking?

I'm not sure. I think every time you play a Brazilian team or a South American team, it's not only 5vs5 on the server, you have the energy, you have everything, you have a rivalry. I can remember paiN playing against us, and yesterday they were yelling, because you do have a rivalry, I want to beat them, they want to beat me. It's normal. I think that's why there is inconsistency, because it's not 5vs5, you have Brazilian energy in that.

Our inconsistency came during the time that I was stepping up to the IGL role, and I think right now we can see more consistency.

Read more

FalleN: "Teams in Brazil have been playing some strong CS"

I remember the last time I talked to you was at the Major last year, and expectations for paiN just before that were pretty high because you were on a big trajectory, but everything fell apart after that. Nearly a year later, where do you feel like you stand, in terms of trying to make it back to the Major and recover from that?

My expectation right now is to lead a team that is going to the Major and make a good run. I don't think a lot about the paiN run back in the day because... I don't know, I didn't like the way that things happened after I got benched and stuff like that, benched the second time. I didn't agree with that, but it was their choice, it's okay. Right now, my objective is to lead a team that's going to the Major and make a good run over there.

Can you expand on what you mean when you say you didn't like the way that happened?

I was not expecting it, to be honest. I felt like we played very well at the Major. I think we lost a couple of rounds against Apeks and in a game against Monte, both games were 2-1 for the opponents, but we lost a couple of rounds that we shouldn't have. I think if we had won one of those games, we could have gone to the Legends stage, something that paiN had never done, or any Brazilian team, besides FURIA and Imperial. I was not expecting it, to be honest, but it is their choice. I'm not blaming them, I'm not beefing with them. It's their choice, and it's okay.

Touching on the Americas RMR a bit, a lot of the Brazilian teams are doing well here, North America is struggling a bit. FalleN also mentioned that a lot of the Brazilian teams are playing well right now, so what has encouraged this uptick in level?

We talk a lot about the Brazilian scene with the guys, and I think that the Brazilian teams always try to be the best Brazilian team, and not the best team in the world. That is something that doesn't help the environment or the Brazilian scene, to be honest. When you win a single game against a European team in the playoffs or something around that, everybody is going to say, 'Okay, now this is the best Brazilian team,' but we didn't win anything. It's something that I think doesn't help the Brazilian scene. Right now, we have a lot of teams that are improving, but Europe is very high above South America and even North America. Yeah... I don't know if we are good or not, to be honest (laughs).

One thing that has changed a bit is that there are players who came up over the last two years or so that were finding success here and there, but now we've seen those pieces move around a lot. You have skullz on Liquid now, you have nqz on another team, and so on. With the talent shuffle and Brazilian teams still trying to find the right formula, what is your opinion on that?

It's hard to build a very good star team with just the stars of each role in the Brazilian scene because buyouts are super expensive, so you cannot build such a team. skullz's move to Liquid was very good, I was super happy for him. I don't know what is happening with the shuffle, but I think the teams are not moving the right way. They are just buying star players and someone that is fragging and not putting together a team with roles and stuff like that, so... I don't know (laughs).

Why do you think they're not moving the right way?

There are teams that are just buying players blindfolded, going like, 'Oh, who's fragging? Okay, I'm going to buy him.' Stuff like that, and I don't think that's how it works.

Going into tomorrow, you're now 1-1, still best-of-threes and you still have a chance to qualify. Thoughts on your prospects going forward into tomorrow in your attempt to come back from your first loss?

The next game is going to be the tough one. I have a feeling that the game for 3-1 is not going to be harder than this next one, so I think we need to play like today — not the Vertigo game, the others (laughs) — and win the next game. Just step by step, as we did during the closed RMR qualifier in South America, and just see how it goes.