What to expect from Wildcard v. MIBR

Wildcard will kick off their run at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 tomorrow with a confrontation against MIBR, a team ranked one spot above them at the VRS. With neither team having particularly strong starts to the year, a win against a similarly ranked team with no outstanding advantages may be just the thing for Wildcard to start Cluj-Napoca on a strong footing.

Wildcard's European Gambit

Wildcard have spent the majority of their year out in Europe, hoping to level up the team and make the most out of being able to claim EU VRS invites. While this gambit failed to show us much at Katowice, two more weeks of practice have hopefully leveled up Wildcard.

• phzy and susp left a bit to be desired in Katowice.

• JBa gave a really good accounting of himself and has continued to prove his bona fides abroad

• Wildcard traditionally play well against Brazilian teams, having played FURIA close in their previous two meetings

Made in Tier Two

Overall we haven't seen much from MIBR in 2025, with their outing at the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025: Closed Qualifier and Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2025 being short-lived and largely uneventful. They have one notable win against Astralis, but otherwise the team have struggled at home and abroad, potentially setting up a great opportunity for Wildcard to build their confidence in Romania.

• drop and Lucaozy have had rough starts to the year

• The team recently swapped BIT and nak (again)

• MIBR did have a decent end to 2024, so perhaps we shouldn't rule them out

Previous Matchups

Wildcard and MIBR have never played each other.

Likely Vetoes

As always, these vetoes come with the caveat that they are highly speculative as they depend on whether MIBR, as the higher-ranked team at the time of seeding, chooses to pick first or ban last. We will assume they ban last.

• Wildcard ban Ancient (MIBR's best map)

• MIBR ban Dust2 (Permaban)

• Wildcard pick Inferno (62% Winrate, wins over FURIA, BIG, VP)

• MIBR pick Nuke (50% Winrate, 8 maps played)

• Wildcard ban Mirage (33% Wirnate, aiming for Anubis)

• MIBR ban Train (0 maps played)

• Anubis as a potential decider

Analysis: I wasn't sure if Wildcard would ban Train at the start of the veto, however I assumed they would be more likely to get rid of MIBR's best map (Ancient) as neither team is likely to let Train through.

With that in mind, I think this veto puts MIBR somewhat on the backfoot as Wildcard would be relatively happy to play Inferno, Nuke, and Anubis, with an Anubis decider favoring Wildcard.

Perhaps Wildcard will second ban Train allowing MIBR to ban Anubis, this setting up Mirage as the decider, but that is inadvisable as the team looked poor on it against Astralis at the start of the year.

Wildcard will face MIBR tomorrow at 09:00AM.