How did MIBR’s image crumble to be hated by CSGO fans

MIBR has long been a top CSGO team and their roster has always been appreciated by fans, experts, and the CSGO community in general. But now that is no longer the case.

Over the past eight years, famous players: Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Epitácio “TACO” de Melo, and Fernando “fer” Alvarenga have remained at the top of the Brazilian CSGO scene. They have a huge fan base that has supported them through major championships, playing for three different organizations, and even during the most difficult times. However, the events of the past month have stained the reputation of these boys.

MIBR members have turned many fans against them. The boys did it with misdeeds and confusing silences, turning themselves into bullies and living cold lives.

But before diving into MIBR and recent issues, we should remember that they have always been on the right side, always winning the hearts of fans, whether we win or lose the battle.

After fnatic defeated Virtus.pro in the quarterfinals of ESL One Cologne 2015, fnatic’s Olof “olofmeister” Gustafsson was upset when the Virtus.pro crowd mocked him during his post-match interview. Without any prompting, VP’s Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas showed up on his own to help Olof and show what sportsmanship is.

“Respect them,” TaZ said. And the fans listen.

MIBR ‘bad guy’ FURIA in round replay

After months of struggling, MIBR seems to have returned to form with the presence of Alencar “trk” Rossato. During a period of poor performance, MIBR was usurped by FURIA to become the strongest Brazilian team. This is an interesting change. During years of using Brazilian teams as ‘breeding farms’ like those from FURIA and Team One, MIBR has taken away many prominent members of the lower Brazilian teams to add to its force. But now, a Brazilian team no longer cooperates and chooses its own path.

FURIA has a sizable fan base, and the journey to becoming the best CSGO team in Brazil coincides with MIBR’s slump. When MIBR came away empty-handed at tournaments like ESL One Road to Rio, FURIA absolutely shined. The competitive results were stable throughout the spring and led the experts to continuously praise FURIA. Fans can feel stuck in MIBR as they keep losing game after game.

The climactic rivalry between the two Brazilian powers exploded in the final round of BLAST Premier Spring.

When the first map was tied at 12-12, the game was suspended because fer lost connection mid-game and then FalleN was also dropped from the server. Despite saying “not live” before the connection was lost, MIBR accidentally damaged the opponent in the competition server. As a rule, that round continued and FURIA then captured bombsite B Inferno and won the round. While fans waited for the players to connect and resume, almost an hour passed, the match was resumed with new news that FURIA agreed to “not live”. That means, the important round that FURIA won is not counted and the game must be restarted from 12-12.

This is a confusing decision. Not only did FURIA according to the rules win, but their players were the first to lose blood. In other words, FURIA has every right not to replay this round. But that did not happen.

It seemed that the match was postponed for nearly an hour to fix a technical error, but it was only to settle the controversy that broke out between MIBR and FURIA. Viewers were disappointed, commentators were also disappointed. Caster of the match, Mohan “launders” Govindasamy, tweeted:

As I said on the broadcast, @Furiagg had every right to not reset the round on inferno.

“nl” (not live) was called in game chat AFTER a player died- they agreed to reset the round when they did not have to.#BLASTPremier

— BOXR_LAUNDERS (@launders) June 17, 2020

“Like I said on the cast, Furia has every right not to reset that round map of Inferno.

“nl” (not live) is typed AFTER a person has died- FURIA agrees to reset the round when they don’t need to.”

MIBR is accused of suppressing FURIA

Thanks to the round reset, MIBR won the first map. But after the match, many people accused MIBR of taking advantage of their position to force FURIA to reset the round. There’s no reason for the round reset to be delayed for almost an hour, fans believe the controversy over whether or not to reset this round was the real cause.

That puts FURIA at a disadvantage. After all, the FURIA players are much younger than the MIBR veterans. Some of the FURIA members have probably been following fer and FalleN since I was a kid.

This conflict separates Brazilian fans. Fans of each faction constantly insult each other. fer also fueled the fire when he tagged FURIA in a Twitter post, calling his opponent a “pump of dung”.

👏👏 @furiagg vocês são uns merdas.

— Fernando Alvarenga (@fer) June 17, 2020

Although things have calmed down, the image of MIBR is not as beautiful as before. Instead of obeying the competition rules and being a role model as usual, the MIBR members took advantage of their position as the ‘big brother of CSGO Brazil’ to suppress the younger team, who always considered MIBR a god. statue. Although FalleN tried to ease the tension when he posted a picture of himself with the FURIA players not long after, MIBR left a stain on the hearts of CSGO fans and professionals.

Less than a week later, MIBR appeared at the top of the CSGO newsletter again. This time, MIBR’s silence made them pay.

MIBR refuses to intervene when fan threatens to kill leaf

When MIBR faced Chaos Esports Club at CS Summit 1.6, former pro 1.6 Alexandre “gAuLeS” Borba was streaming the match to thousands of Brazilian viewers. Since many tournaments don’t have Portuguese narration, gAuLeS often re-streams and comments on his experience for Brazilian fans to enjoy. But when 16-year-old talent Nathan “leaf” Org of Chaos impressively read MIBR’s moves, gAuLeS accused the young man of hacking.

The streamer’s viewers were quickly agitated. They not only harassed leaf on Twitter and other social networks, but also sent death threats to the young player. Meanwhile, Brazil’s golden generation FalleN, TACO and fer did not mention anything.

Angry CSGO community. Experts such as analyst and caster Jason “Moses” O’Toole have condemned the behavior.

“I woke up today, really shocked with the fans of this whole area. They sent death threats to a 16-year-old boy. Whether you hack it or not, yesterday was the shameful display of the “fandom” I’ve seen in 20 years of Counter-Strike.”

Many people blame gAuLeS while streaming. gAuLeS has inadvertently made some of its fans target leaf, but MIBR’s silence isn’t much nicer either. After that, non-Brazilian fans began to have a different judgment about the Brazilian CSGO community: making stigmatizing and disparaging words about them.

Things have calmed down eventually, but many fans are waiting for a new drama by the MIBR players, whom they used to respect so much.

What MIBR is lacking at the moment is not style, tactics or cohesion, but it is the ‘exemplary image of the big brother’ that I once built.

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