Fluxo on their way to Copenhagen
After tournament favorites, Complexity and Evil Geniuses fell at the first hurdle the spot at the Copenhagen finals was left wide open. It would be down to the recently struggling MIBR side and the relatively obscure Fluxo to battle it out for a trip to Denmark and the Fall Finals.
Map one would be Dust2, a favourite of a number of South American teams, and a map both sets of players would feel at home on. MIBR would be looking for their IGL Jhonatan "JOTA" Willian to once again put up some monster numbers, who came into the final as the highest-rated player at the tournament. For Fluxo their inspiration would likely have to come from Lucas "Lucaozy" Neves, the second highest-rated player at the tournament.
MIBR looked like they would once again be able to rely on their leader's fragging ability, JOTA opening up the pistol round with a 3k and the ECL side converted the following two rounds to take a 3-0 lead. Fluxo answered back with a three round string of their own, which started off with a 2v4 clutch from Lucaozy and Vinicius "vsm" Moreira.
vsm would pull off another incredible clutch, on 2hp, to save Fluxo from an embarrassing throw against just a saved AWP and pistols and post their fifth round on the T-side. MIBR ended the streak with a solid hold in the ninth round to leave the scores almost tied moving into the late stages of the first half.
It was beginning to turn into a classic Brazilian brawl, with very little outright strategy from either team and the game was playing out like a COD deathmatch. JOTA, vsm, and Lucaozy were thriving in the pug style leading the way for their respective teams with the two sides trading round for round up until the end of the half. The squads swapped sides with Fluxo holding the slimmest of margins on their map pick, 8-7.
The back and forth continued in the second half with the first two rounds being traded between the sides, in the 17th round MIBR managed to secure the round with just a single kill after Fluxo called an early four-man save. The intensely close battle continued and in the 24th round MIBR would once again tie up the scores with a flawless entry through A long.
Fluxo finally managed to break the streak at 12-12 closing out the map in large parts thanks to some incredibly aggressive rifling from Lucaozy and vsm's clutch ability. Moving onto map two would be MIBR's pick of Vertigo, a map they have played fourteen times but only with a 57% win-rate on and a map they lost to Fluxo last time they fought on it.
MIBR got things off on the right foot by winning the pistol round, but a clutch with the Dual Berrettas on the following force buy by João "felps" Vasconcellos tied the scores at 1-1. MIBR would establish their dominance on the second map, racing into a 6-2 lead on the less favored T-side. Henrique "HEN1" Teles has failed to live up to his reputation since joining MIBR but he reminded the scene what he is capable of in this map, sitting at 12-2 after just seven rounds.
After such a close opening map, the way in which MIBR just walked through the Fluxo defense was a worrying sign. Lucaozy and vsm tried to rescue one last round at the end of the half but failed in the 2v2 attempt and left Fluxo trailing 3-12. Fluxo got the comeback started stinging together the pistol and the following 2 rounds but ran into a wall in the 18th.
Even JOTA falling off the map couldnt help restart the comeback for Fluxo and MIBR cleaned up the rest of the rounds to take the match to a Nuke decider for all the marbles. Fluxo kicked Nuke off with a Matchmaking classic, the vent dive, and surprisingly it worked a charm giving them a flawless round.
Fluxo managed to claim the next two rounds and headed into the opening gun round with a 3-0 advantage. Lucaozy found the opening kill in the fourth round and with HEN1 dropped as well ramp was left open for the T-side of Fluxo to exploit. MIBR found their first round in the fifth and would secure the follow-up to avoid any major economic disruption and keep the rounds flowing.
A big 1v2 clutch on low health from Breno "brnz4n" Poletto managed to bring MIBR to within one of the Fluxo side and they would follow up that round with a comfortable fifth to tie the game. Another big individual round from JOTA gave MIBR some breathing room taking a 7-5 lead and they could start to feel more positive about their CT-side performance.
Fluxo would keep the match close by picking up a sixth round for their T-side but that would be all they could muster, not a bad total moving into the favored CT-side. After a short tech pause due to HEN1 punching his desk and spilling water over his keyboard, MIBR secured double digits setting themselves up for the home stretch to reach the Copenhagen finals.
Fluxo composed themselves to put up a strong defense to tie the scores after back-to-back rounds which included a flawless round in the 20th. MIBR were relying on clutching to try and steal rounds and this time it was Raphael "exit" Lacerda's turn to close out a 1v3. Another big round from Lucaozy on the B site gave Fluxo a three round lead at 14-11.
A slip up from Fluxo on the defense let MIBR back into the game and at 14-13 the CT-side were left with a weak buy. Fluxo deployed their trap card locking out MIBR's attempt to push secret and bringing up match point despite their weaker guns. On match point felps found the opener through smoke at squeaky door and Fluxo locked up qualification to complete their fairy-tale run.
MIBRFluxo| MIBR |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Henrique 'HEN1' Teles |
62 - 48 | +14 | 83.5 | 70.5% | 1.22 |
| Raphael 'exit' Lacerda |
60 - 38 | +22 | 76.3 | 76.9% | 1.20 |
| Jhonatan 'JOTA' Willian |
51 - 53 | -2 | 73.6 | 66.7% | 0.99 |
| Breno 'brnz4n' Poletto |
43 - 54 | -11 | 64.2 | 64.1% | 0.87 |
| Matheus 'Tuurtle' Anhaia |
38 - 60 | -22 | 66.8 | 65.4% | 0.81 |
| Fluxo |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lucas 'Lucaozy' Neves |
66 - 48 | +18 | 87.2 | 76.9% | 1.25 |
| João 'felps' Vasconcellos |
51 - 56 | -5 | 82.9 | 75.6% | 1.12 |
| Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira |
53 - 50 | +3 | 75.1 | 66.7% | 1.07 |
| Lucas 'lux' Meneghini |
45 - 46 | -1 | 60.9 | 78.2% | 1.04 |
| Adriano 'WOOD7' Cerato |
36 - 54 | -18 | 52.9 | 62.8% | 0.74 |
