It feels like foreign territory, talking about the legendary SK Gaming core without legendary star player Marcelo "coldzera" David, but that is the new reality. The new roster featuring Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles and Vito "kNgV-" Giuseppe has a lot of attitude, but is still pretty unproven in terms of results. This team has a much higher skill ceiling than before, but they have a role clash issue that needs to be addressed first.
Roster
Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo (1.06)
The legendary IGL has seen his individual performance hover at average levels, but his shotcalling has seemingly degraded over the past year and a half. While MIBR tends to have brief hot flashes, they don't go beyond that. The champ is always a solid fantasy pick because of his relatively low cost and high historical ceiling.
Vito "kNgV-" Giuseppe (1.12)
KNG has been an extremely polarizing figure ever since his time on the Immortals lineup, but his skill was always there. The best player on MIBR, kNg is a good fragging replacement for coldzera even if their styles clash. An aggressive hybrid, kNg is a great player for a fantasy team looking for some role flexibility.
Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles (1.07)
Lucas has always been an amazing support player for various Brazillian lineups, but has never made it to the best lineup in Brazil due to being linked with his brother Henrique "HEN1" Teles. Seeing LUCAS1 apart from his brother has been fun to watch and it is great to see him not be overshadowed by the flashy plays that HEN1 is known for, but how LUCAS1 will fit into MIBR still remains to be seen. He's not a support style player on this team (that will be TACO of course) but he's not a true IGL as long as FalleN is here. Hopefully his numbers stay positive and coach Wilton "Zews" Prado figures out the x's and o's.
Fernando "fer" Alvarenga (1.11)
Fer has remained a "fermonster" for MIBR and that has helped the team keep some dignity in their recent placings. While he will not be a top five player of the year, he will definitely be one of the most interesting to watch at EPL Season 10 Finals. Look for fer to be a good fragger, but a little expensive for fantasy unless you use your boosters properly.
Epitacio "TACO" de Melo (0.99)
TACO has been TACO which is both good and bad. While he has shown more life on other lineups (Team Liquid), he has currently gone back to being a more passive player that seems a bit outdated. Now that they have a true secondary AWPer, TACO has seen some roles changed and his ceiling is relatively average so his fantasy value is limited.
Recent Form
Online:
MIBR: 2 - 1 eUnited (ECS)
MIBR 1 - 2 ATK (ECS)
Offline:
EPL S10 (1st-4th)
V4 Future Sports 2019 (3rd-4th)
BLAST Pro Series: Moscow 2019 (4th)
The placements for MIBR are very poor compared to their pedigree. Their only good recent placement was making it to the Pro League finals. Their online results include losses to the likes of ATK and a 3rd-4th at V4 is borderline embarrassing. Thankfully it is a small sample and MIBR have turned to trend slightly positive.
The Path to Success
MIBR have had some decent results online, but the V4 Future Sports Festival loss to Tricked looks really bad. I'm really excited to see where this team goes because of the raw skill it has, but they need FalleN and TACO to get back in proper form if they want to think about winning trophies anytime soon. If MIBR places past top 4 they will do it off of smart pick/bans and playing around star Brazillian talent kNg.
Prediction: 5th-6th.
Written By: Ezekiel Carsella@jamaican116