fer: "We're going to play with zews [at the Major]"

We caught up with Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga after MIBR survived day one in Chicago to ask him about the team's mentality for the American event and their plans for the Major.

Day one at IEM Chicago was a tumultuous ride for the Brazilian side, who immediately fell to Group A's lower bracket after a one-sided series with G2 before beating Envy in a close three-mapper, which concluded with a comeback on Train.

After the first day in Chicago came to an end, we spoke to fer about MIBR's mentality at the tournament and their matches, and he also commented on the team's plans for the StarLadder Major.

At BLAST it was apparent that the tournament was a lot about having fun playing with zews, not taking it too seriously, has that mentality changed in the meantime or is it more of the same here?

Actually, we were taking it seriously, of course, but we knew that it was going to be difficult because we just lost coldzera, one of the best players in the world, so we are playing with our coach. zews hasn't been playing for something like four years and of course it's hard for him, even though he's watching us play, but when you're playing, you feel the pressure, so it's hard for him. But we are just here to have fun, we are trying to create a good atmosphere in the team, so we're trying to treat each other better as people, as well. We are just feeling really good about playing with each other and we're just enjoying to play, and when you enjoy playing you play your game. Sometimes you just go with the flow and it's good.

You've just barely survived the first day here, at first losing to G2 in what was quite a rough series before playing against Envy in a tight match, tell me about how the day went for you.

Well, against G2, they wrecked us, nothing we can say. They're a really good team, but now against Envy, they're playing with their coach, as well, so it was like a fair match (laughs), coach against coach, so it was fun to play, of course. And on the first map, Eley was playing really well, it was kind of hard for us (laughs) and they beat us on this map, but on Mirage and Train we just feel confident to play even with zews because those are some of our best maps, so it doesn't matter if we're playing with zews or cold. zews was going to do the support role for us and he did, it was amazing for us. It feels good to win with zews, of course, because as I said we are here to have fun, and when you win it's even more fun.

It still took quite a big comeback on Train, though...

Yeah, it was crazy because we did like five rounds and FalleN won a 1v3 as T. Doing T rounds is really hard and we didn't practice Train for a while, but we played it like twice yesterday so that zews can get used to it because we knew we could play it today. It was good, zews was with his SCAR - we call it "tac tac" - and we were laughing when we played, so that was fun.

What's the goal here outside of having fun playing, you've got a month until the Major, so what is the plan?

The goal now for us is that we're trying to find our fifth player, we still don't have a name yet, but we know that we can't decide yet because the Major is coming up. We're just trying to focus on ourselves, of course it's going to be really hard, but our goal for the Major is to keep our Legends spot, so let's see if we can do it. Now we're just trying to get zews used to playing with us and even though we know it's going to be really hard to win with him, we just got LUCAS1, as well, so it's kind of a new team, we got caught by surprise when coldzera left the team. We're just surviving and having fun, that's the truth, to be honest, we're just here to play CS and if we win, it's going to be really good for us.

Does that mean that with the reverted emergency transfer rule, you will play the Major with zews for sure?

Yeah, we can do it, so we're probably going to play with zews because the roster is locked, so we can't play with anyone else. We can only play with the people that we put into the team, so of course we're going to play with zews. It's going to be fun, zews never played a Major properly, so it's a dream for him, as well. I just want to try to do my best so that zews can be a Legend and have his trophy on Steam, so it's going to be really good for him! Let's see.