MiBr Vs Ence Map 1, Mirage, IEM Chicago

Over this past weekend IEM Chicago, Vitality versus Team Liquid, and perhaps the most dominant grand final ever took place. However, one of the more interesting events to take place was Made in Brazil’s (MiBr) upset over Ence on Mirage. Going into the best of three it seemed highly unlikely that MiBr would be able to make the series interesting, let alone even take the first map in the series.

After all, they had just lost, inarguably, the franchise cornerstone in Coldzera and were operating with a temporary replacement in the form of their coach Zews. To top that off they were coming face to face with the current number three team in the world, Ence, on Mirage. Despite those hurdles, they managed to jump to a convincing T side performance of 10 rounds and then managed to wrap it all together very well on the CT side with an impressive 16–9 win. Even though ultimately they failed to tighten the noose around Ence’s neck on the subsequent two maps there were still some impressive lessons to glean from the overall matchup on mirage from both teams, lessons which I will touch on below.

Fer the Wrecking Ball

Even if one were to not watch the game and simply rely on the boxscore it would quickly become apparent that one of the biggest reasons for MiBr’s upset win on Mirage was Fer. He finished with a 26–17 scoreline, 91.4 ADR, and 1.41 HLTV 2.0 rating for the map overall. Despite this impressive statistical performance that immediately leaps off the page, when the box score is brought up, this sadly still fails to emphasize the actual impact that Fer had on the game.

Fer’s impact on this mirage game was beyond the box score, largely due to the aggressive manner in which he imposed his will. A great example of this was in the fifth round of MiBr’s CT side when Fer took advantage of his spawn and solo pushed, without any nade or teammate support, into Palace. He managed to quickly get an entry onto one Ence opponent, dropped a smoke, and managed to flee without being traded by the second terrorist within palace. This play had a manifold impact, not only did he singlehandedly create a 5v4 advantage for the CT’s, a situation which professional teams long for, he also managed to gain information on a second individual being in palace early, a point that was not lost on the MiBr side and allowed them to quickly hedge another man over to the A site as Ence’s initial intentions for the round were telegraphed.

This was but an example of Fer’s individual impact on the game. Throughout this game, Fer looked as aggressive, and as dominant, as he did when he finished as HLTV’s 3rd best player of 2017. For MiBR fans this can only be looked at as a positive sign for things to come, if he can keep this up upon MiBr finding stability internally roster wise then perhaps MiBr can once again climb back the ranks of the top 10.

Ence Stood Tall as a Team

One of the most interesting things I found about Ence’s loss to MiBr in Mirage when conducting a comprehensive breakdown of their play through the eye test, was that they actually did not play that poorly within the structure of a team. If anything there is potentially even an argument to be made that they had more unique and well thought out structure than MiBr throughout most of the map and that a primary reason they lost was them being unable to hit their shots at an adequate level.

A round which put this unique character of the game on full display was the first gun round in the game, round 3. MiBr went into the round with a full setup and Ence went into the round light on nades, a problem which was only compounded by them utilizing a smoke early into the round for a connector molly. By the 1:40 mark of the round Ence had found themselves severely lacking on utility, only possessing two smokes and two flashes in their arsenal to combat the MiBR terrorist side. Realizing that they were in a disadvantageous situation, one where if they simply led themselves be bled dry of their remaining utility they would be forced to submit to the whims of the encroaching terrorist side, they quickly utilized some of their remaining utility in a proactive manner. Aleksib threw a smoke on cat from the CT side and proceeded to take ladder control unnoticed, changing a disadvantageous situation into one where at least they had proper map control to combat the terrorist sides advances. This possession of ladder room allowed the rest of the Ence team to transmute their setup into one that would give them favorable engagements, they left the B anchor on-site playing bench, stacked Allu on CT to AWP Connector and then doubled up close A ramp. This setup allowed them to get the first two picks in and ultimately conclusively end the round, despite MiBr hitting some impressive shots to make the round close.

The subsequent round was a similar story, in terms of Ence’s tactical genius, but ultimately came with a different conclusion as Ence failed to close the round out due to simply being unable to hit their shots. The round starts off very slowly, MiBr committing most of their members towards A site and thusly telegraphing their hit to the viewer. Ence follows that up by having a player push top mid and clear it with a SMG, and considering they had lack of any presence B side. This gives Ence the impression that MiBr will be executing towards A, which they do end up doing, and they choose to meet it with a retake A setup with one individual playing towards CT with a SMG. At this point in the round the odds seem tilted in Ence’s favor, after all MiBr was forced to expend all utility while taking the site, while going down a man, and on the other hand of things Ence had managed to hold onto their own lives and a treasure chest of nades for the post-plant. Ence even seemed cognizant of Fer’s rotation through T spawn to Cat, as the bomb was planted in a typical position for said location. Despite all these impressive advantages being placed at the feet of Ence they failed to seal the deal as Fallen managed to push out A ramp and get two aggressive picks with the Galil vs the retaking Ct’s.

Both of these rounds served to illustrate an interesting characteristic that largely played out throughout this game, Ence were methodical and calculating but ultimately wilted under the pressure that MiBr’s individuals would output by utilizing their wealth of individual skill.

A Deep Toolkit is not as Valuable as the Knowledge and Wherewithal of when to use them

One of the most natural human tendencies is to get caught up with the glitz and glamor that variety brings and subsequently failing to appreciate the value that simplicity can bring to one’s life. Be that as it may, this was not one of those occasions, as MiBr managed to prove how even with a limited toolkit, in terms of tactics, one can succeed if one knows the proper path towards execution.

This limited toolkit manifested itself in the form of a smoke wall A execute that MiBr heavily relied on for most of their Terrorist side. Even from the pistol round MiBr heavily prioritized Connector side smokes, and whenever they had full access to utility they would form a smokewall towards Jungle and Stairs, molly the push through in case Ence players decided to go for a cheeky push, and then they would isolate A site together (successfully if I may add considering the 10–5 half). This is not particularly a very innovative strat, as it has been a part of the standard metagame of Mirage for quite some time now, however, the genius of MiBr, specifically in regards to the timing of strat execution, truly kicked in during round 9.

To set the scene of Round 9, by my count MiBr had gone B side once, that too the round previously when they were on eco. Furthermore, Round 9 was once again a similar tale, only with a twist that hardly anyone on Ence could have predicted. For further context’s sake, MiBr had also previously been punished by an aggressive palace push on the side of Ence at one point, something that was no doubt fresh in their minds. This round, not only in order to counteract such a setup but also for strat purposes, MiBr stacked 3 in palace and left 2 B side. The B side guys cleared underpass like normal, no need to let Ence shrink the map unbeknownst to them. The next key piece of action in the game was when Ence flashed into A ramp and cleared deep, thusly giving them misleading information that probability wise MiBr were more likely to be focusing on control towards B, and they end up rotating their mid guy towards B. This assumption clearly came from their experiences, up till this point, with MiBr’s devastating smoke wall executes onto A site, essentially they had been conditioned to think this way by the actions of Mibr.

All the while this took place on Ence’s side Mibr heard the movements in A ramp from palace, and they quickly responded by having the two B side guys throw utility out and pushed Taco onto the site. Taco lived up to expectations by finding an entry and furthermore began to cause the rotations of the A site Ence individuals towards B, at which point MiBr bursted out palace traded out and secured the round. The only criticism one could have had is that the palace guy bursted a bit early in terms of timing, they could have allowed rotations to go on a bit further but at the end of the day that is simply hindsight nitpicking. All in all this round turned out to be a masterclass example in terms of how a simple toolkit can be utilized for devastating effects if careful consideration is taken towards timing and execution.

While these three points are some of the main talking points I found to have stood out to me over the course of watching the matchup it can not be said to be the only didactic talking points present within the game. After all each professional game is but merely a culmination of hours upon hours of hard work and dedication put in by some of the most talented individuals that the world of Counter-Strike has to offer. I would highly recommend going back yourself, as the reader, and pouring over the game slowly in order to see what interesting points come upon you while watching these games.

**I hope to make this a regular series so if you enjoyed it feel free to follow me as I will be dropping more of these about various games and series I find worth discussing**