MIBR and Cloud9 will play in the Long Cognego quarter-finals of the group stage of IEM Rio 2023. There is a fear that Cloud9 will fall into an emotional hole, but this championship should be the final test for them. If they fail, there will be no avoiding a change.
There's nothing good to say about MIBR, though, as the team failed at the local RMR tournament. Moreover, the Brazilian team obviously got bogged down in North America, where they gradually regressed.
So here I would lean on Cloud9 to win, who with the Brazilians can regain confidence in their game. And MIBR will be much more difficult to win without the fans.
MIBR's form
The world No. 24 team recently won ESL Challenger League Season 44 North America and CCT North America Series 4, but also fell in the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown 2023 Americas where they lost to paiN Gaming.
Already after that, the Brazilian team went to the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Americas RMR, where they were defeated in the first round by Flamengo.
And despite subsequent victories over 00NATION and BESTIA, MIBR still couldn't cope with Complexity Gaming and dropped out. The team also made it to the closed qualification for ESL Challenger Katowice 2023 the other day, but all that pales in comparison to the failure.
The latest MIBR results:
- A 2-1 win over BESTIA.
- A 0-2 loss to Complexity Gaming.
- A 16-12 win over Case Esports.
- Beat ODDIK 16-12.
- 2-0 win over W7M Academy.
Top scores for MIBR:
- Inferno - 81% wins.
- Ancient - 78% wins.
- Anubis - 76% wins.
- Vertigo - 76% wins.
- Nuke - 54% wins.
It should be reminded that the Brazilian squad no longer plays on Mirage.
Cloud9 form
The fifth team in the world rankings played terribly in the main part of the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Europe RMR B, where victories over FORZE and Eternal Fire came in defeat of Monte.
Furthermore, Cloud9 had a poor showing in their key games against G2 Esports and ENCE, which made life much more difficult by eliminating them in the extra leg.
Here the Russian side took on B8 Esports and BIG and seemed to have found themselves. However, in the very end, the Ledge team buried FaZe Clan, burying themselves after a given comeback with the score 14-5.
Cloud9's latest results:
- A 0-2 defeat to G2 Esports.
- Defeat to ENCE by a score of 0-2.
- 2-0 win over B8 Esports.
- 2-0 win over BIG.
- Defeat by FaZe Clan 0-2.
Cloud9's best scores:
- Vertigo - 82% wins.
- Mirage - 73% wins.
- Overpass - 62% wins.
- Ancient - 58% wins.
In turn, the Russian team continues to reject Nuke maps.
MIBR - Cloud9 match statistics
The teams have not met before.
Outlook for the match MIBR - Cloud9
I want to believe that Cloud9 will be able to quickly recover from the failure. And I don't particularly believe in the Brazilians, who without the support of the stands though will be motivated, but clearly will sag on morale.
In general, it all rests on the psychology of the Cloudies, who need to forget everything that happened in Copenhagen in 24 hours. And it seems to me that on the background of MIBR, the sore spots will not surface.
So in this case, I'd recommend betting on Cloud9 to win.
