How SK and former 100 Thieves have shaped CS Brazil

SK Gaming and former 100 Thieves are the two most prominent forces in Brazil’s Counter-Strike village in the international arena. While SK Gaming has a near-perfect reputation, people remember the other team thanks to a string of scandals. However, both teams have become role models for young players to follow, and are gradually shaping the Brazilian CS:GO community.

This Cybersport article will cover the successes of Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo and the reasons why the Teles brothers and Vito “kNG” Giuseppe make people hate the Brazilian players.

Why the CS:GO world is not Brazil-friendly

Let’s look at the facts: before Luminosity Gaming took the big wins, nobody cared about CS Brazil. Like the CIS, this area has long been considered a ‘village pond’. No one knows what’s going on in the region, the organizations and the fans here: Brazilian players take part in local tournaments and sometimes LAN, no one is aiming for the international arena. Even when the old Keyd Stars were always present in the playoffs of the Major, the skill gap was too great – they all lost to European teams, no matter how close the match was.

At that point, Luminosity moved the CS:GO roster to the US. Step by step, FalleN improved the team’s play, until they became the best team in North America. That’s when American fans began to catch the revolt of the Brazilian community.

Brazilian fans ask to be “respected” on forums, esport portals and Twitch channels. After Luminosity’s victory at the Major, they demanded that the parties acknowledge the Brazilian region as the best in the world. Americans and Europeans protested by joking about the lagging behind of Brazil and South America in general.

Arguments are not always light-hearted. On social media, Brazilians often threaten others if they see comments from that person as disparaging their country. Journalist Duncan “Thorin” Shields was one of those subjects, and Spencer “Hiko” Martin refused to attend ESL Pro League Season 4 in São Paolo unless he was escorted by bodyguards (which Liquid later also assisted with). ), and his family received death threats on Facebook.

After FalleN’s second win at the Major, things became clearer. Brazil has the best CS team in the world (even though they live in the US), while their country still lacks CS facilities even though home fans proudly admit Brazil (meaning SK) is the best in the world. gender. In many ways, this is true: FalleN’s team is always in touch with the community. Although Robin “flusha” Rönnquist was the one who financially supported the players to get to the first Major, but part of the money Keyd Stars received came from the Brazilian fanbase. But we still have to face the truth: SK used to be the best team in the world, but the CS region in Brazil is still weak.

FalleN, the savior of CS Brazil

Who can bring CS Brazil out of the ‘village pond’ and improve their image without FalleN? He has always considered it as his responsibility to this day.

FalleN has long been helping young Brazilian players: he founded Games Academy, an esport school that teaches CS:GO and League of Legends, which he teaches and makes instructional videos by himself. When he no longer had time for school, GA was still active. Graduated players include Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles, Henrique “HEN1” Teles and Ricardo “boltz”Prass, they later switched to Tempo Sotrm, went to America and competed in the final of the Krakow Major as Immortals. FalleN also helped youth teams from Colombia and Argentina reach the LAN finals.

Second, FalleN and his team have always been very important role models. Winning the Major isn’t just about the team’s success; it is a great impetus for the local area to follow.

“I think what we have to do: be ourselves, be honest and fair in everything we do in life! All the support for me comes from there and that’s my way of life. I hope we can create great moments for our fans!” – FalleN at ESL 24/02/2015.

FalleN is clearly a role model for many, not just in the Brazilian community: recently a Russian fan had him tattooed on her arm. During his career years, FalleN has never insulted or humiliated anyone, while his friendliness towards fans and other players is immeasurable. He is everyone’s favorite figure.

FalleN and SK are working on two different fronts: on the one hand, they are trying to improve the living conditions of these professions for young South American teams. On the other hand, they are competing for their own image and that of Brazil. At present, it is difficult to say that they have succeeded. SK players have a good reputation, but their connection with Brazil is still not strong enough: in contrast to another Brazilian team, the former 100 Thieves.

How ex-Immortals/100 Thieves players sabotage FalleN’s work

In mid-2016, another Brazilian degree began to emerge: former Immortals members. In 20156, FalleN hosted the Golden Chance event, a tournament where four Brazilian teams competed against each other and the winning team traveled to the US at the expense of Games Academy.

That award belongs to Brain Stamp Como, members include: HEN1, LUCAS1, Gustavo “SHOOWTiME” Goncalves, Lincoln “fnx” Wipe, and Epitácio “TACO” de Melo. They slowly got used to North America and after a few member changes, Brazil had an optimal squad, enough to face Cloud9 and Team Liquid. The team does great in Tier 2 tournaments where they often reach the finals. At big events, the team always gets to the playoffs, or at least wins against strong opponents in the group stage. Then Immortals made a big splash at the 2017 PGL Major Krarkow, where they were just one map away from the championship.

It seemed that the Immortals would have a bright future ahead of them, but everything was soon ruined by a series of scandals, starting right there in Krarkow. The Brazilian team had been drinking before the final, according to Duncan “Thorin” Shields. The journalist confirmed in a YouTube video about the rise and fall of kNg. No one spoke out to confirm Thorin’s authenticity, but he said the person witnessed the incident. In the past, his posts always provoked insults from Brazilian fans.

Two months later, the biggest CS controversy of 2017 began: three Immortals players -HEN1, LUCAS1 and kNg – made it to the finals late at DreamHack Montreal 2017, thus losing the first map; In the second map, North didn’t give the opponent any hope of coming back. The end of the story is well known: the accusation of ‘drinking’, the saying “you have to prove it or I will kill you”, kNg was kicked from the top of the picture, and the Teles twins were present. bag.

It can be seen that such events have made the conflict between Brazilian fans and the world continue to escalate. Brazilian fans defended their idols, while the other group criticized the unprofessional behavior. The reputation of the Brazilian region was badly affected. FalleN walked away frustrated. Looks like that’s when the relationship between the two teams took a turn for the worse. In January 2018, Toledo admitted that he no longer talks to fnx, the Teles brothers, or kNg, even though they played together in the past.

After Immortals removed the troublemakers from the roster, the members returned to Brazil to enjoy life. Party photos kept appearing on the members’ Instagrams, leaving many with no reason to doubt why the Brazilian team was late to the Montreal final. It became the subject of jokes on Reddit.

These Brazilian members did not appear in CS for almost half a year, until December 2017, Bruno “BIT” Lima joined and signed with 100 Thieves. The team moved to Poland to practice for the ELEAGUE Major. But they had to miss this tournament because no players were allowed to enter the US. According to BIT, this was due to the fault of their law firm, when they did not prepare enough documents. However, according to many sources from moses, he said that one member of the team had a legal problem with another country, and that was probably the reason why he was denied entry to the US. Whatever the truth, this is a stain on the reputation of the team.

There’s a player on that team involved in an incident that had the police involved while traveling in a foreign country. Donno if that had an impact, I’d like to wait for details but it wouldn’t surprise. Donno why they’re the center of the convo about visa issues :/

— Jason O’Toole (@OnFireMoses) January 13, 2018

The Brazilian team’s scandal record continued to increase after kNg’s “gender” comment for Thorin’s party joke. 100 Thieves has no tolerance for this behavior: kNg was kicked and the squad was disbanded just a few days later, while the organization lost a lot of money to acquire three former Immortals members. The Brazilian boys, excluding kNg, are looking for a new organization; kNg returns to his homeland and will most likely not join another North American team. This is probably the most embarrassing for any top team in CS history.

Those shit you’re talking about, are you sober? or is it just after you make love to your boyfriend?

— Vito Giuseppe (@kngvito) January 21, 2018

One interesting thing about the story of 100 Thieves is that the team has very little contact with the Western community. While boltz and Lucas “Steel” Lopez both studied English. Sometimes these two agree to give interviews to Western journalists. As for “Thieves”, they don’t, they just stream and talk on social networks in their mother tongue. While FalleN has long been seen as “part of the world community,” the former 100 Thieves members are still far too foreign to the West.

All success lies in America

Since SK’s second Major, the CS Brazil region is full of life. In addition to SK Gaming and former 100 Thieves, Brazil also has Lumiosity Gaming, which is also playing in the US. Not long ago, at ESL Pro League Season 6, they defeated Astralis and Team Liquid in the group stage, which is commendable.

And the Brazilian is willing to try new things. Many actively learn English, others join the international squad: Wilton “zews” Prado has been a coach of Team Liquid for quite some time, while Steel has also recently joined the team to compete.

It’s hard to know what’s going on in Brazil at the moment, but FalleN is keeping a close eye on the situation in the country. He revived the famous brand, YeaH! Gaming,, along with zews and Taco. In addition, the SK lineup could leave the current organization to represent the once legendary MiBR. This is an important step.

However, although Brazil has achieved commendable achievements, they have encountered reputation problems. While FalleN is clearly the role model for all young players to follow, his warm, welcoming gestures to the Western community aren’t the only thing being emulated by youngsters: take Immortals, for example. Whether they will integrate into American culture or will be “strangers in a foreign land” depends on the fall of Immortals and the 100 Thieves scandal. Although these players did not behave nicely, they understood that they needed to do everything to stay in the US, because Brazil is not a place to develop the future.

Source: Alexei “lope” Borisov