brett on slump: "It was time to take a risk and pick up some untested talent"

Dust2.us' own Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore caught up with Brett "brett" Rhein following his match with BHOP that qualified his mix team for playoffs at Fragicago 2024. The two spoke about how the mix came together, the roster whirlwind that his main roster FLUFFY AIMERS has been through, and a mysterious collaboration of currently rostered players that may emerge towards the end of this ECL season, among other topics.

Please note that the full interview can be found below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

To start, how did this mix team come together? Obviously BHOP isn't your regular home since you IGL for FLUFFY AIMERS, so how did you all come together to compete in Fragicago?

We actually originally weren't BHOP we were just a random mix team who all met each other in Mythic Diamond and we decided since the registration was filling up so fast Zichael decided to buy a slot because he figured he could put together a a rag-tag roster to compete even if it wasn't the best team, just to go because he lives in the area.

So he asked me to go he said, "I'll pay for your food and I'll house you," and I said, "all I got to do is pay for my flight? I'm showing up." So good deal, get to come here, hang out with some friends, have a good time, don't really expect to win the event because of how stacked this one is but definitely just here to have a good time.

Despite that you guys did end up making playoffs in a confident fashion tell me about your run through the group stage and how have you felt so far about the team's performance.

Well it's tough because even though we had some relatively easy matchups we 2-0'd an [ESEA] Main team and then we 2-0ed an [ESEA] Advanced mix, we actually lost the vetoes, because we didn't submit the form in time.

So our vetoes we completely lost all bans in the veto so the other team basically did the whole veto and we had to play whatever maps they told us to play and we ended up 2-0ing both games so it worked out okay for us. We didn't really have anything planned at all we literally sat down, I was like, "where is everyone playing?" and "what are we doing?" and I just called what I could and it worked.

Shifting to FLUFFY AIMERS, you started the season by adding slump and bezymecc but then almost immediately you ended up sidelining bezymecc for MarKE, who is obviously an upgrade. But how did MarKE find his way onto the team? It's kind of a very high-profile player for a team that doesn't have maybe have the prestige of a team that MarKE would normally go for.

Well, luckily the owner FishTheHusky has many contacts and he's close with other streamers as well like fenom and fenom actually was able to get Fish in contact with MarKE so they could have a talk and talk about what's needed to make this happen. MarKE was also very interested in trying to qualify for the Major so that was a big aspect of why he joined in the first place, to try to qualify for the Major.

Speaking of that Major qualifier I think many would say that FLUFFY AIMERS punched well above their weight uh finishing the Swiss stage 3-1 and then you went to the last chance match where where you fell to Legacy, missing out on that spot in China. Were you surprised by your performance in the RMR CQ? Was that expected from you guys at all?

To be honest with you after I lost the first round versus Nouns I was really frustrated and I kind of wanted to give up. I was really not happy with the way I called, how I played, or how the team played. We didn't use our tac pauses at all, a lot of these rounds we had no plan, it was really bad the pressure was definitely there. When we were down 0-1 I talked to my teammates, I talked to my dad, and I realized we have nothing to lose we just should just play how we play in our scrims we should just play how we play in our pugs. Just play confident, just play for fun, have fun, and play the game.

I really snapped out of it and started calling really well. I feel like I called some of my best games definitely during those three best-of-threes, everyone fully trusted, and the vibes were good every single series. It was a good time we all had fun.

So that Closed Qualifier definitely did a a good job at raising the team's confidence and raising their overall standing in the eyes of the community. Unfortunately in ESL Challenger League we recently discovered that you won't be able to use MarKE due to roster restrictions. Is that a crushing blow for the team? How are they feeling about not being able to use one of their star players?

I mean to be honest with you it is saddening. I was really hoping there would be some loophole to get him into the team because now that he's not in the team he's actually considering all options. As he should you know? He doesn't want to waste his time and he's a very talented player and a very good teammate and he'll do great wherever he ends up. Hopefully it's on FLUFFY AIMERS, right now he's just looking at all his options because there's not many things to play other than the Cash Cups coming up and CCT playoffs.

There's really nothing for us to play and we have like four ECL matches left right now so it's really dead right now in the way of actual officials. Plus, his main goal when he joined was to make the Major right? So that was his main reason of joining the team so I really can't blame him if he does decide to join a different team because there are rumors of another team forming, a new team from players around who have maybe left their current teams.