drop on seeing Lucaozy report: "I woke up and was like 'BIT, nak, what the f**k is this'"

MIBR's captain discussed taking over leadership duties and how reports of talks with Lucaozy caught him off-guard.

MIBR have reached the semi-finals at ESL Pro League Season 20 following a 2-0 win over M80, making it the best result at a Big Event for the team since Raphael "⁠exit⁠" Lacerda joined in April 2021 and the best for the organization since IEM Chicago 2019.

The run comes at a crucial juncture for the lineup after reports indicated MIBR is in advanced discussions to sign Lucas "⁠Lucaozy⁠" Neves ahead of the Perfect World Shanghai Major Americas RMR.

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Media: MIBR in advanced talks with Lucaozy

The 22-year-old has been on MIBR's wishlist for years and his addition would provide a significant boon in firepower for the team, who won ESL Challenger Melbourne earlier in the year but has struggled to beat top opposition consistently.

That trajectory has started to turn around since the team swapped leadership from exit to drop, a change which has enabled both players to flourish in different roles and given drop a more natural voice on the team, he told HLTV after MIBR's match.

Still, recent results meant MIBR arrived in Malta with little expectation of making a deep run, with their goal instead set on making the playoffs. The turning point was when the Brazilians finally beat Spirit, who they had a 0-10 map record against, in the group stage, which instilled confidence and is "the main reason why we are here now," drop said.

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

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Semi-finals of ESL Pro League. How are you feeling?

I'm just feeling happy. I can't say we were expecting this when we first came to Pro League, we were more like 'Guys, let's just try and make it to the playoffs, it would be a great goal for us.' Now we are here and looking for the trophy, so everyone is hyped, excited, and happy to be here.

How important was it to get a win over a team like Spirit in the group stage, because that must have given you a lot of confidence?

Yeah for sure, it was our high peak to be honest. The feeling was better when we beat Spirit than now that we are in the semi-finals, because we had a 0-10 map record against them and we couldn't beat them. Also we couldn't beat 9z, the team we faced before Spirit.

So we just beat 9z, then we put up a comeback against Spirit, the first map was 13-2 for Spirit or something, and it was the turning point for us, I would classify it as that. It gave us a lot of confidence, and it's the main reason why we are here now.

How were you feeling ahead of this M80 game? It was obviously definitely a game you could win, and probably you were the slight favorites going into it. Did that change anything? Because you are probably used to, when in Europe, playing as the underdogs.

Yeah it changes a lot because when you are playing against a team that you are supposed to beat and things start going wrong, you just feel more stressed. We just started the game 6-1 or 6-2, something like that, and they went up to 6-6, and we were feeling more stressed because we weren't supposed to lose those rounds to them.

When you are playing MR12 it's always a close game, so you can't make a lot of mistakes. So we were like 'Guys, we can't make many mistakes, but we can't feel much stress. Let's just try to chill, keep our communication up, and we can easily beat them. If we just go in and be the same MIBR that played against Spirit, that played against HEROIC, we're gonna easily smash them.' That's what we tried to do. We couldn't do it sometimes, but that was our mentality during the game.

Looking forward, you are going to play either Eternal Fire or Vitality. Do you have a preference about which team you'd like to play?

Not really to be honest. Vitality is now the top team in the world and we don't have a good record against Eternal Fire, so I don't care who's coming. We're in the semi-finals, we're happy, we're going to face everyone with the same respect and approach of the game.

Which team do you think you match up better against?

Oh… maybe Vitality. If you are talking about map pool it would be Vitality. Eternal Fire have some maps that they feel very comfortable on that we are not that comfortable to play in a semi-final. The map pool is kind of the same, both teams veto Ancient… I would pick Eternal Fire.

You are the IGL now for MIBR. How did you come to that decision as a team?

We needed to make a change because we were not feeling comfortable and not reaching the results. We just lost the RMR, we were playing a tournament here and there and having some success, but we couldn't be consistent. So we decided we needed to change something, and I was like 'Guys I need to be more active, I need to play in better roles. I can't be an anchor anymore, I need to talk more.'

We decided that if we did this, it was better for me to become an IGL, because I was already talking too much when I was playing. I was the second caller but sometimes I was talking more than exit, during the mid-round and stuff like that. So we needed to change something, we were not going to change the roster, so that's why we came to the IGL role.

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It was kinda unexpected to be honest because we were playing, we were losing, we needed to change something, but it was kinda out of nowhere for me. It was something exit was comfortable doing, giving me the IGL role, and I was comfortable taking it and letting him go to his usual role as an anchor. He is a more passive player and he is doing pretty good at it. So that's how we made the decision.

So would you say it was a natural fit for you to step into the IGL role?

Yeah. When I first joined FURIA there was already a discussion in the Brazilian community that I was talking too much, I was calling a lot of things, and it was like, 'Oh, drop is going to become IGL anytime soon' (laughs).

But I was like, 'Guys I don't really know, I think it will happen with time, but I don't know if now is the right time.' Now it came and I just am embracing the opportunity and going with the flow.

Seems to be working out so far?

Yeah (laughs) it looks like it, but let's see what the future has for us.

A couple of weeks ago there were some reports in the media that MIBR were in talks with Lucaozy. Can you comment on that at all?

I won't lie, I don't know anything. I just woke up and there was 'MIBR are talking with Lucaozy,' and I was like 'BIT, nak, what the fuck is this,' and we had a conversation. I can't talk too much about it, I just really don't know (laughs).

Do you think a result like this means the team might just stay as it is?

Yeah, maybe. We are not thinking about this so much, we're just trying to feel comfortable, trying to forget this thing. As soon as we are here, we are the five that are playing. We don't care about him, we don't care about who was going to leave or stuff like that, we are just here to play the tournament and be happy with each other.

In general, it feels like Brazilian Counter-Strike is having a bit of a resurgence at the moment. paiN are doing really well, you are having this result here, FURIA are looking better recently. How does it feel to be at the tip of this mini-resurgence? Especially with this result, which would be the best Brazil has had in a long time.

It feels good. It shows us we are going in the right way. It's just one result, it's just one tournament. We can't say, 'We are the best team, we are going to keep doing this,' because we don't know what's going to happen in the future. But it shows that we are going the right way, we are getting better, and if we're here once, we can do it in the future. That's what we are looking forward to.