MIBR fRoD on the team's goal for the split "We want to use this stage as an evolution for players"

At the VCT Americas 2024 Split 2, MIBR took on 100 Thieves in their second game of the Superweek.

Despite the team’s efforts, they fell short, losing the series 0-2. Following their loss, Strafe sat down with the team’s Head Coach Daniel "fRoD" Montaner.

In the exclusive interview, fRoD talks about the team's poor record, bringing in new faces, developing new talent, plans for the split and the next two games.

[Interviewer] Sorry for the loss, What do you think was the problem in the game against 100 Thieves?

First of all, I want to say that 100 Thieves played amazing. I think tactically they were very strong. We kind of knew what they were going to do. So we didn't get caught off guard by how they were doing what they did. They were just shooting some shots.

But overall, I felt like the things that we could have done a better job are some of the things that we missed out. Like we do in practice, even though we've had a limited amount of practice, I think that we need a little bit more proactivity and communication from our block, which unfortunately is some of our new guys, which don't have that much experience, like even Palla, Rich.

Like if we need, we definitely miss a little bit of the communication and that fire that they had, especially during training in the first game they played together.

But at the end of the day, it's to be expected. You know, they are players that have a lot of growing to do and they're going to continue to grow. So it's something that we're going to take from this loss.

It's very, very unfortunate that we lost, of course, but we're going to take, we're going to try and learn our best from it and make sure that individually as a team we improve, but also individually we fine tune some of these things that we're finding out that, you know, we're trying to replicate in practice and our job is to replicate that on stage.

[Interviewer] What was the idea behind bringing in two new faces in the team? Was this a short term plan or something you are doing for the long term?

Yeah, I mean, starting 0-5 in the first split, it was impossible or nearly impossible for us to even make the playoffs. I mean, if we would have won out, we would have had to expect a lot of luck. So, it's hard to go into the second split 0-5 and say, look, we're going to win every single game and we're going to hope for a miracle just to qualify for the playoffs, because that's what would have happened.

So I think the organization as well as myself, we made this decision or the organization made a decision to make some changes and the coaching staff and the players and everything like that to kind of look forward to the future.

We understand that some of these players are inexperienced, but at the same time, you know, experience isn't everything. Look at guys like Demon1, they had no experience and they ended up being the best player in the world last year.

So, experience can sometimes be overrated, especially from the players' perspective. It's more important, I think, that IGLs and coaches have that experience to be able to pass on that knowledge to the younger players.

So, I think what you're seeing now in VALORANT is a wave of young talent that's absolutely insane and talented. And I think that those kids deserve a chance to prove themselves on stage.

Of course, there's going to be bumps along the way. It's all a learning process. But I think the goal for us is to win games, win maps, and use this stage as an evolution for the players to create a new identity and a new structure for ourselves so we can, you know, come out next year swinging.

Obviously, like I said, we knew that it was going to be a tough situation for us to even make the playoffs, even if we won out. So, the focus for us is for the long run and to focus on the evolution of these players individually.

[Interviewer] MIBR started the year really strong, missing Madrid only by an inch. But when the regular season started the team struggled, going without a win. What do you think changed between Kickoff and the start of the regular season?

Yeah, I think it's a lot of things that were happening to a lot of the Brazilian teams. It happened a little bit to LOUD. It happened to FURIA a lot, of course. And it happened to us a lot.

I think everyone was focusing so much on practice, training as much as we can, maybe training too much, saying, Oh, we're playing six days a week. We're playing a whole bunch of practices. But if we can't replicate what we do in practice on stage, then we're never going to have success, no matter how much you play.

And I think that that was our biggest problem. With the last team, maybe the pressure or maybe the expectations of how well we played affected some of them in the sense that they had this pressure on stage that it was just hard for them to overcome and fill these situations when there is that kind of pressure. It's a little bit different with these new guys on this split because they don't have that experience or that past stuff.

But at the end of the day, it's always going to come down to how we practice and how we can replicate that in the matches. And I think that we didn't do a good job of that today. And, you know, going back to your question, I think that we did a poor job of that in the split where we were practicing really good.

We were making sure we were correcting our mistakes, coming up with a good game plan, good structure, everything. And then for whatever reason, things would just choke. I think in Split 1 with the old roster, you would see some really amazing rounds for us.

I think you see some really bad rounds for us. Or you see like the first 20, 30 seconds of a round beautifully played. And in the last 10, 15 seconds, we played like crap.

So I think it was finding that sort of consistency, being okay with boring games. All boring games are games that take a long time. You might go into overtime, you know.

So I think that we have to find that sort of comfort and kind of understand the rhythm of the game that slows down every step you go from rank to scrims to matches. It all slows down, slows down. So you're going to be comfortable with that sort of boring style of playing because everyone's playing with pressure behind them.

The other team has just as much pressure as we have. So it's just an understanding of that and replicating. And we did a poor job of that.

[Interviewer] What would be the team’s goal for the remaining games?

Our goal doesn't change. We're in this pursuit of evolution and we're in pursuit of victory. So regardless of us being, you know, not able to make the playoffs or whatever, we're here to evolve as a unit.

We're here to try and win games. And we're going to give it all we can to do that regardless of if we're out or not. I mean, look how we were in kickoff once we lost one map to G2.

We were technically out, but we still ended up beating them. I think it's just something that for us, we have a lot of pride in the way that we work. We represent a brand that's great.

We represent a country that's fantastic when it comes to FPS. So we're here to represent our families, our country and everyone. So, you know, this is not a time to feel bad or anything like that.

It's time to focus and try and win games regardless of where we sit in the standings.

[Interviewer] Thank you for your time. Have a great day.

MIBR plays FURIA later today in their second last game of the Split. You can catch the game live on Twitch or YouTube.

Catch the extended video version of the interview on Strafe app YouTube.

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Featured Image Credits: Tina Jo/Riot Games

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