I recently had the chance to talk with Logan from MIBR about the team's semi-recent roster changes, WCG performance, and future plans.

Please introduce yourself.

Logan: Hi, my name is Bruno Corassa AKA Logan. I’m 26 years old, and I’m MIBR’s manager.

To begin, I would like to pose a question many of us have been pondering: why did kikooo and drd leave the team?

Logan: Kiko lives in Sao Paulo, and when he joined MIBR almost two years ago he moved to Rio de Janeiro (MIBR’s home city). So he left his family, friends, and studies behind to play for MIBR. Before WCG, he decided to go back to Sao Paulo and stop traveling as much as he had to do with MIBR since he missed his family and friends, and also wanted to get back to his studies. So that’s basically what happened.

Did everything end on favorable terms?

Logan: Yes. We still love kiko.

And drd's departure?

Logan: He was almost at the same kiko’s situation. They both left for the same reasons.

How do you feel the roster changes will affect MIBR, and has the team begun adapting to the changes?

Logan: I don’t think it will affect us too much because we had seven players before, and while two may have left we still have five. Corassa and eduzin are excellent players as well. They have a lot of experience and both are practicing to keep their game in good shape; eduzin was playing for Revoltz and Corassa for sT, the two teams that the MIBR company sponsors here. If you stop to think about it, this is almost the same lineup MIBR had when we took 5th place at CPL Winter 2003. The only difference is cogu in kiko´s place, and everyone has had a chance to see how good a player cogu is. So we only need to get back their team play, and we are working hard on it.

Speaking of eduzin and Corassa joining other teams, what is the idea behind eduzin and Corrassa joining other teams? When they joined Revoltz and sT, respectively, they were still part of MIBR, correct?

Logan: As Revoltz and sT are both sponsored by MIBR, we consider the 3 teams to be a family. They PCW together at MIBR’s private LAN center and help each other practice. Corassa and eduzin "joined" sT and Revoltz to help them and keep themselves playing well by playing many PCW's with these two teams. They didn’t ever really leave MIBR, but now they are back and playing with the team again.

Do you believe that the "new" roster can achieve success similar to that of the previous roster?

Logan: Yes, I’m much more confident with this "new" lineup. I think it’s only a matter of time for them to get back their old team play.

When you say Rev0ltz and sT are sponsored by MIBR, what kind of sponsorship are you talking about? Is it financial sponsorship, or gameplay-related sponsorship (practices, lessons, etc.)?

Logan: Financial sponsorship. All players from both teams receive salaries - though of course less than MIBR’s – and they can use our private LAN center to practice. We also pay for them to attend national tournaments, including airfare and accommodations. I can also announce that it is almost certain that Revoltz will be attending CPL Winter 2004.

Moving on to your job, I must ask: if you are the manager, what exactly does Vesslan do?

Logan: Vesslan headed back to Sweden already, but when he was here his job was to motivate and work on MIBR’s mentality and to change their life style. As he always says, "If you want to be a professional, you have to live as one!” He helped with tactics and in-game stuff as well, but the motivation was his main purpose.

So Vesslan left MIBR, or is he still working with the team from Sweden?

Logan: At the moment, he had to go back to Sweden to take care of his company, but maybe we’ll see him back in the future ;)

Alright, let's talk tournaments. Can you explain your performance at WCG? Some might compare MIBR and WCG to 3D and the de_cbble curse. MIBR has attended WCG twice, and each time has had problems with in-game bugs or illegal play of some sort. Also, could you tell us a little bit about what happened on de_inferno against The Titans.

Logan: Sadly, it seems that we are cursed. I really hope that WCG can improve their organization by next year; it seems that they only care about the visual aspect of the event. What happened is that we needed only one more round to get to the semi finals, and Titans used an exploit of de_inferno to gain an advantage. We tried complaining to the WCG admins, but when they agreed that it was illegal they didn’t want to go back on their initial decision, so we got 5-8th place.

What do you think about the use of that spot? Did The Titans know it was illegal?

Logan: Hmmm, I don’t know them and I wasn’t there at WCG to see exactly what happened. Everything I’ve heard has come from my teammates, so I cant say much about this...

Let’s talk about the Brazilian Counter-Strike scene. Why do you feel Brazil is by far the top country in the Latin American professional Counter-Strike scene?

Logan: Hmm... I think there is one fact that helped A LOT with Brazil’s development in the international scene: DBA sponsorship to MIBR. If it wasn’t for DBA, Brazil wouldn’t have any teams attending most of the tournaments that MIBR attended. Only a few of the qualifiers that MIBR won - we won almost every qualifier to international tournaments since MIBR was founded before CPL Winter 2002 - paid the trip for us. So if it weren’t for DBA supplying us with air tickets and accommodations, Brazil wouldn’t have had representation in all of those events that MIBR attended.

Before major tournaments, MIBR has often bootcamped with SK.swe and once with NoA. Does the team currently have any plans to bootcamp with any teams before CPL Winter?

Logan: Hmm, we will practice a lot here in Brazil with Revoltz, sT, gc, gc.br , g3x and all the good Brazilian teams until the beginning of December. One week or two before CPL we will probably go to the USA to bootcamp there.

What about a bootcamp with any South American teams, besides the Brazilian ones?

Logan: Not yet, but who knows? Maybe we will.

How much time does the team currently spend practicing?

Logan: Every day for five to six hours a day. A little bit before CPL we will increase this amount of practice.

Now, one final difficult question: name your pick for the top five Counter-Strike teams in the world.

Logan: Hmmm, it’s hard for sure. At the professional level, little details make all the difference and there are a lot of excellent teams around the world. But if I had to choose: 1- SK, 2 - EYE, 3 - NoA, 4 - Spixel and 5 - mouz.

Well I guess that’s all. Any final comments?

Logan: Yes, I wanna thank MIBR’s fans, gotfrag, our sponsors (DBA, NVidia and Shuttle) and everyone that supports us. THANK YOU ALL!