guerri ahead of EPL: "We need to be prepared for war"

FURIA are currently in Malta to compete in Group A of ESL Pro League Season 18. Ahead of their first match against the Spanish squad Movistar Riders, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke to head coach, Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira, about the team's development with Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, the state of the Brazilian scenes, and the squad's expectations after a bumpy period on LAN, among other topics.

As the team have struggled to find their footing on LAN, what are the team’s expectations for ESL Pro League?

We are feeling well, we played some officials before Pro League to warm up, so this was really important to getting FalleN in some officials. We are improving each day. I am confident that we can improve our play, our playstyle, and the way we play at this tournament compared to the last few ones.

As part of that process of getting more officials, FURIA Pinnacle Cup V and reached the finals. Unfortunately, KSCERATO fell ill during that tournament and had to miss part of the finals. Is he back up to 100% now?

Yes, today he is about 90% and tomorrow he will be 100% for sure.

We have seen some discussion about how arT fits into the team since the arrival of FalleN. Has the acclimation period taken longer than you expected?

The people that cheer for us want results really fast, that is normal, the Brazilian fan base is like that. I expect that, I know that it takes time to build the team with a new IGL, a new leader. Yurrih, arT, and KSCERATO automatically know how they need to play, how they need to react, so we need to learn how to play with FalleN. So in this period we're learning and trying to mix things, but it's never going to be our best. It’s in the plan.

You talked about some of that mixing of the old team with the new team. Is the plan to have FalleN completely take over the reigns and have his style in the team, or is meant to be a synthesis of arT’s old vision and FalleN’s new vision?

Both players are trying to fill up the gaps that they can see in each other’s styles. Maybe the dominant style will be FalleN since he is the IGL, but we are trying to do our best to mix things for sure.

FURIA’s changes came amidst a massive Brazilian shuffle. What do you think about the new MIBR and Imperial?

MIBR is really strong, but they need time to get more experience as a roster. Even though exit and saffee are older, brnz4n, insani, and drop are young and they will need a lot of time to work together and build the team like us. They are more for the future, it will be tough for them to win big tournaments right now.

Imperial is more prepared at the moment because they have more experienced like boltz, HEN1, and felps. They have more solid players, but they need time too since they changed a lot. Both teams are strong, but both need time to become good rosters.

Looking at the Brazilian scene as a whole, do you think that the scene has gotten stronger during the offseason?

In the beginning of these changes, we are not stronger because these are big changes for everyone. The time will tell us if everyone will get stronger or not, but right now I can’t answer this question with any information. We need to just see the next six months to answer that.

What do you think about your first opponent, Movistar Riders, in Group A?

It’s another team that we play sometimes. They have a good lineup, Martinez is a good AWPer because he always gives us a hard time. We need to be really careful and have a lot of attention in this match. This is the first match of Pro League and I hope that we can win.

Your shortest path to playoffs would see you have to beat Movistar Riders then GamerLegion. Do you think FURIA were given a gift not having to face any tier one teams in the group stage?

This is not even my concern. My concern is to focus on the game against Movistar and do our best and try to reach the playoffs. Whatever teams are coming, we need to prepare the right way and be prepared for war. We are in war, bro.

There is a lot of time between your group and playoffs. How does your team plan on staying warm between these two phases of the event?

We have the whole year, we don’t have sequential tournaments with no time to prepare. We need to use this time to prepare for the playoffs and watch the games, practice, and have a relaxed time as well. We need to combine a lot of things in this period to be warm for the playoffs.

FURIA will make their ESL Pro League Season 18 debut tomorrow against Movistar Riders at 10:00AM.