insani: "With exit going to the role he has now, he is way better than I have ever seen him"

The Brazilian rifler had high praise for his teammate after his switch away from in-game leadership.

MIBR are on a heater at ESL Pro League Season 20, breaking through to the playoffs after beating 9z and finally tallying a series win over Spirit to turn around a 0-10 map record against the Russian team.

Their campaign continued in playoffs with a 2-1 win over HEROIC, putting the team through to the quarter-finals and marking the first time since Season 15 that a Brazilian team reached the top eight at Pro League.

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MIBR see off HEROIC in Pro League playoffs

Felipe "⁠insani⁠" Yuji spoke to HLTV after the match of the relief he felt after reaching the quarter-finals in first-ever Pro League playoffs, MIBR's upcoming match against M80, and André "⁠drop⁠" Abreu taking over leadership allowing Raphael "⁠exit⁠" Lacerda to flourish.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, listen to the interview here.

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What are your thoughts after that series?

We always have tough games against them so it's really pleasant to play and win against them. We won the last two BO3s against them, so I think we're pretty sharp and we've found our way against them.

You had some really big T sides, particularly on Nuke. Why do you think you were so good on T-side against them?

Actually I think on the first map at the start of the game, me personally, I wasn't feeling very sharp individually. I was kinda getting warmed up as the maps went, and on Nuke I was just running and killing them, I was in my flow state.

How does it feel to have such a deep run in a tournament like this? You are already in the quarter-finals now.

This is the first time I have qualified for the playoffs of Pro League and we have gone to the quarter-finals, so I am really happy. I am relieved that I have crossed this limit that I have never crossed before, so I am happy, and confident that we will keep going.

You have M80 next, a team that you can definitely beat. Do you feel like you can go to the semi-finals and have a really deep run?

For sure I think we can beat M80, but their team or any team that we can go against, I think we can beat. I think we have a really good chance to qualify for the semi-finals, so that is what we are going to get at right now.

How important was it to get a win over a team like Spirit in the group stage? Because that must have given you loads of confidence that you could beat any team.

Yeah, indeed. We had a history of 0-10 in maps against Spirit so we said, 'Come on guys it's our time now, we're going to get this.' We started the game confident, we started the game communicating as we would against any other team, and things kept going for our side. We got the win so we were very happy after it, and it for sure gave us a lot of confidence.

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Media: MIBR in advanced talks with Lucaozy

You recently changed your IGL and drop has taken over the leadership role. How much of an affect that has had on your performance here? Because you seem to be playing really well.

I think it was a good change because we could see the game in other ways that we haven't seen before with exit, and we could combine forces. With exit going to the role that he has right now, I think he's way better than I have ever seen him, so I think he is pretty sharp, and drop has also been IGLing very good.

I think everybody helps this, and with every piece of the team working together and performing individually, I think it helps me as well.

It's been a bit of an up-and-down year for MIBR. You won that ESL Challenger event, didn't qualify for the Major, now you're having a good run here. Why do you think MIBR has been a little bit inconsistent?

That's something that we always try to work on because we know that we have been inconsistent all year, that's something we have been working on since the start of the year. We are looking for the right way to fix it. So I guess… to be fair I don't really know [why] (laughs), but we are working on it and that's something that is our priority right now.

Where do you think the peak level is for this MIBR roster? You have been together for a while now with this five, I think about a year. What's the height that you think you can reach?

I think the highest that I can imagine is qualifying for the playoffs for the Major, being Legends. I think it's a dream for everyone, especially for me who hasn't been at any Major. I think that's a good goal for us.