MIBR shapes up for the Austin Major, with insani hoping the hard work in practice pays off.
It hasn't been the best of starts for MIBR in 2025, but Felipe "insani" Yuji believes his team is on the right track as they look to navigate a tricky IEM Melbourne bracket.
The Brazilian squad came close to sending NaVi spiralling into the lower bracket, but the boys in yellow and black bounced back after a rough opening map on Anubis to instead consign MIBR to the hard road. Insani believes MIBR is strong enough to go back-to-back in Australia, referencing the team's win over Aurora at ESL Challenger Melbourne 2024.
The goal at MIBR is consistency, insani says to esports.gg — but finding it is the tricky part.
insani: "Everyone strives to find consistency, but it's difficult"
A lot of teams are struggling through jetlag, I take it you and MIBR are in the same boat?
I'm feeling really tired, especially at these hours because now it's like morning in Brazil. We got here like one day before media day so we didn't get too much time to get used to the hours. It's like 13 hours of difference from Brazil. It's not easy!
Talk to me about prep for the event. Many of the teams attending are saying with the schedule being so tight, they're flying from event to event, so they haven't had a lot of time to practice for this one. It’s a little different for you guys, no?
We are not similar because we stayed in Brazil for one month and kept training. We had like four weeks of training in Brazil and we didn't play any tournaments, so we had a lot of time to practice and to be prepared for [IEM Melbourne] and the fixes we had to take. That said, 30-plus hours of flight is kind of difficult for us.
Talk me through your opening series. You shot out of the gate and really took the fight to NaVi; for a moment a 2-0 felt on the cards. But they ended up working back into the series.
We prepared for NaVi like any other team. We know they're a good team, but we know that we can beat them. On Anubis, it's one map that we feel very comfortable, we can beat anyone on the map.
We just played our game and did what we felt comfortable doing, it’s because of this we won. Going to Mirage, we had plenty of time to practice and we were confident on the map, but it’s one of their best and they outplayed us, props to them.
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For Inferno, I think the game was decided on the minor details. It's like one frag here or one frag there or a flash that we didn't do decided each round. I think, in the end, good Counter-Strike is like this; matches and teams are going to be decided in these details and that's what happened here.
There’s been a lot of movement at MIBR when it comes to the back office such as the coaching staff, analysts, etc. What is jnt bringing to the roster now that you haven't really experienced previously?
What I like about jnt is that he’s very different, he comes in as fresh blood. It's always good to have differences in CS; in MIBR I think we always deal well with differences and with changes.
[jnt] has different sides of view about CS and helps us adapt very well. I think he's a very good coach and it's getting us up to the next level.
Consistency is something you guys are still really pushing to accomplish. This year's been a little up and down, and you guys have noted in the past you were still struggling to work out where things were going on. Can you sum up 2025 so far and whether you have identified where you guys can improve?
Everyone strives to find consistency. Every athlete in every sport in the world struggles to find consistency, and when they find it, they elevate to become the best or at least a top-tier competitor. However, this is very difficult, and I think to do that we have to work out our mistakes.
We’re starting to see the mistakes though, and we’re fixing them. We’ve changed the IGL, we’ve changed the coach, and we’ve changed positions. Every day we try to get our game perfect, to minimize our mistakes in the server.
It’s important we do it now; we spent a month without a tournament and focused entirely on practice, so we have to show ourselves off from here.
From here you’re heading to PGL Astana, then the big one in Austin for the Major. Is there a minimum level or expectation you’re setting yourselves before you head to the Austin Major?
I'm getting tired of setting goals or targets, winning this or winning that — it’s more important that we show very good CS and be competitive against top-tier teams and stop struggling against the lower teams. We are trying to step up our game as a whole, and I’m not setting any target for our run.
MIBR will suit up in their eliminator against SAW tomorrow as the first day draws to a close at IEM Melbourne. For more CS2 coverage, stay with us at esports.gg.
