A historic lineup has reformed now that MIBR has solidified a new fifth for 2019 and the upcoming $1 million Major.
MIBR announced today that it completed the signing of Brazilian star Joao “felps” Vasconcellos from INTZ Esports, effectively reuniting him with his old SK Gaming teammates. He’s taking the spot on the team that was vacated by Tarik Celik, after MIBR returned to its Brazilian colors in December.
The team traded North American Jake “Stewie2k” Yip to Team Liquid and benched Tarik over a week ago, while also acquiring Epitacio “TACO” de Melo and Wilton “zews” Prado in the process. It made sense for MIBR to replace former Serbian coach Janko “YNk” Paunovic at the time because he doesn’t speak Portuguese and zews does. Otherwise, Ricardo “dead” Sinigaglia would need to be MIBR’s coach, instead of serving as the team manager.
For a period in 2017, SK Gaming were a force to be reckoned with when felps was on the lineup. The roster took home five championships before the August player break, and their performances slowly declined over time. This eventually resulted in SK swapping out felps for Ricardo “boltz” Prass, mostly due to discrepancies in playstyles.
IEM Katowice, the next Valve Major tournament, will be MIBR’s first tournament as an all-Brazilian lineup since last June, when the organization brought on the former Cloud9 NA duo of Stewie2k and Tarik. Their journey in the first Major of 2019 begins in the New Legends stage on Feb. 20.
