What does the future hold for MIBR without coldzera?

This season definitely isn’t going how MIBR expected it to. The team hasn’t played in a single grand final yet since they opted to run a full-Brazilian roster in January.

And MIBR may play even worse in their upcoming events since Marcelo “coldzera” David, the former best player in the world according to HLTV in 2016 and 2017, asked to leave the team. He’ll sit on the bench until a team pays his buyout and MIBR will play with their coach, Wilton “zews” Prado, at BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles, which starts today, and IEM Chicago next week. It’s unclear what MIBR will do for the StarLadder Major in August since teams can’t change their rosters anymore, but there are plenty of questions surrounding MIBR’s future without coldzera.

Coldzera offered to play at these three events, but MIBR preferred to immediately start their rebuilding process. The team made various roster changes over the last few years, even playing with North Americans Jake “Stewie2K” Yip and Tarik Celik. But this is an unfamiliar situation for MIBR since the core of coldzera, Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, and Fernando “fer” Alvarenga have played together since July 2015.

MIBR won’t be able to sign players from FURIA, a team that’s been above them in the HLTV ranking since June. Andrei “arT” Piovezan and crew recently renewed their contracts with FURIA for five years and some of them have already turned MIBR down more than once.

So, who can MIBR sign? They already acquired Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles from Luminosity Gaming in June, loan-trading him with felps. They finished ESL One Cologne, their first event with LUCAS1, in last place. Ricardo “boltz” Prass, one of the best players on Luminosity, already played with FalleN and fer twice and was kicked from MIBR in July 2018.

One of their options is to sign Henrique “HEN1” Teles, LUCAS1’s twin brother. The brothers had played together since the beginning of their professional CS:GO careers in 2014 until LUCAS1 recently left to join MIBR. HEN1 lacks consistency, but at his peak, he’s one of the best AWPers in the world. But signing HEN1 would mean MIBR would have to take the AWP away from FalleN.

If they don’t want to compromise FalleN’s playstyle, MIBR could go after Marcelo “chelo” Cespedes from INTZ. He was once one of the top prospects in Brazil and is kind of similar to coldzera—he has good aim, a passive playstyle, and was often left to clutch rounds. He isn’t as experienced as HEN1 or boltz, for example, but he’s already played in some tier-one tournaments.

But MIBR don’t have a lot of options in terms of players who are familiar with competing at the top level. And in a fragile moment like this, they probably won’t want to bet on an inexperienced player to replace coldzera, one of the best players in the world.

With zews in the lineup, FalleN, fer, LUCAS1, and Epitácio “TACO” de Melo should play without pressure and it could reignite their fire for the game, FalleN said. But MIBR must think about the big picture so they won’t stay too far behind FURIA’s level and end up losing fans. 

For now, however, one of the players will have to step and shine if MIBR want to advance to the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles semifinals this weekend.