Interview with CNB.Takeshi "This year we will see a Brazilian team playing at the World Championship

In the next weekend the first edition of Brazilian League, one of roads for Brazilian teams to qualify for the Brazilian Championship 2014, arrives in their playoffs. In one of semifinals, we can watch the battle of CNB e-Sports (South American Champions) vs paiN Gaming (Brazilian Champions).

To know more about the expectation of one finalist and the vision of one Brazilian player about the arrival of the Korean quartet playing for Keyd Stars and paiN Gaming, we spoke with Murilo "Takeshi" Alves, the Captain and Mid Laner of CNB e-Sports Club, the team that took the podium multiple times in the last season in Brazil!

Check the original Portuguese interview Gabriel "gabrielpumba" Melo has done here.

In the last year your team had a strong performance within the Brazilian competitive scene. CNB e-Sports was the team that climbed the podium in important tournaments, the second who obtained gold medals and other awards. The numbers show that 2013 was a great year for CNB but do you and your teammates think the same? How do you analyze the "campaign" for CNB last season?

CNB Takeshi: We were able to show regularly that CNB e-Sports was the second best Brazilian team constantly. If i'm not wrong, in fourteen finals my team attended thirteen of them. In my opinion we missed experience in 2013. Whenever we were in a final and we lost the first game and then lost our focus. However we did still try to play the series in the best possible way.

CNB played the finals of the major Brazilian offline tournaments of Season 3, but won only one; the International Challenger 2014, the first championship with the presence of Brazilian and Latin American teams. If it were possible to go back in time, would you go back and change anything? If yes, which one and what?

CNB Takeshi: It's hard look to the past and try to change anything or any decision that was made. I think if we arrived in so many finals and we lost the majority, so many times it was for different reasons. But thanks to the defeats, today, my team is one of the most experienced within the scene and we are not the most impacted emotionally. But if I could return to past, I would try to be more patient and would not have taken that "camp" of SirT in the finals of CBLoL 2013.

Your former team was hired by CNB in the middle of 2013 and during the whole year, only one "change" was made - the hiring of Rodrigo "Draek" Oliveira. Because of that, CNB was considered as the most stable team. But in 2014, more precisely after the Global Challenge São Paulo, your team made a drastic change in their line-up with the exiting of DRAEK and Danagorn, benched for Manajj and the hiring of Revolta and Esa - who was dismissed a few weeks after. Were the changes made due the bad performance at the Brazilian qualifier for IEM or because the organization perceived it was time to move on from what was happening at the time?

CNB Takeshi: The changes made don't have a direct link with our result at the Brazilian qualifier for IEM, up because we knew it would be difficult to defeat Millenium in our first challenge in that tournament. The reformulation was made because we felt the necessity to take 1 step back and take two steps forward. I believe that reforming any roster is something you make as an investment towards the future. We wanted a more serious atmosphere and seeked those that had more desire to win in our team; we didn't see these prerequisites fullfiled with some of these players and decided to take the action that would be best when looking ahead.

CNB e-Sports finished the Champion Series in second place with a 70% of win rate and without losing a Bo2. Was this the performance you expected? Do you think that in certain games your team could have performed better? If yes, which ones?

CNB Takeshi: Since the early stages of the league our mentality was to fight for first place. We hadn't really considered it an ideal performance, but we do think that there were a lot of draws that should have been 2-0's, which could have helped us achieve our goals.

Analyzing the history of CNB e-Sports we can see that your team probably had the best performances against the Brazilian/Korean squad of paiN and Keyd. Has CNB figured them out? What in your opinion was missing for CNB to get a victory over them in a Bo2 or Bo3 ?

CNB Takeshi: We learned to play against Keyd Stars and paiN Gaming, even having played a few times against them we can see how the style of their game. To win them we need have a better strategy in all matches of the series.

In this next weekend, CNB will play against paiN Gaming in the semifinals of Brazilian League. This match is a rematch of the finals for the main Brazilian tournaments of last season (CBLoL and International Challenger). What is the expectation for this match? And what, for you, are the strengths of paiN?

CNB Takeshi: The expectation for our matches, as always, is a victory regardless of opponent. We want the weekend to arrive soon so we can play. CNB and paiN were the better teams last season and is always good to play this classic matchup against them. The strength of paiN, today, is their rotations around the map to secure towers. With the arrival of Koreans they changed their playstyle quite a bit which helped them become stronger.

How is the preparation of CNB for the playoffs? Are there many errors to be corrected?

CNB Takeshi: We are preparing well for this stage of the playoffs. We know that any basic mistake can cost you a game and even the championship. Still there are errors, but we are correcting them as much as possible to reach the championship to our greatest potential.

The Brazilian scene has changed a lot this year, especially after the face-off for the Global Challenge. Brazil will not have just one but two leagues; one serving directly as a way to qualify for the finals of the Brazilian Championship. Besides that the main "big" teams have invested in infrastructure for their players and have made significant changes in their rosters, with some teams reaching out to hire foreign players. Because of that, do you think that the Brazilian scene has arrived at the level of the American and European scenes? If not, what do you think needs to be done?

CNB Takeshi: I think the level of the Brazilian scene grew quite a lot during this year. The arrival of foreign players certainly improved our competitive as[ect. I think we are still not at the same level of foreign scenes. There, we can see so many teams with good quality and here we cannot because we don't have a huge disparity between the teams of "Tier 1" status, but we do between the main and amateur teams.

Speaking on the topic of foreign players, this year, Brazil acquired the presence of Kour korean players. They brought with themselves another skill level, a different game style and a competitive edge, including international experience (SuNo in NA) and long leagues. With the help of these players and all of them brought over to the Brazilian scene, do you think that Brazil can have strong performances in the future international tournaments?

CNB Takeshi: Certainly the arrival of Koreans helped our teams quite a bit to obtain an international level of play. I think that in the next international tournament attended by Brazilian teams we can surprise so many people with our evolution. I think that this year we will see a Brazilian team playing at the World Championship.

Your team played a lot against the Korean players, both in scrims and in tournaments. So, could you make a short briefing on your opinions of the strengths of SuNo, Winged, Lactea and Olleh? And for you, which duo do you think can make the most difference for their respective teams?

CNB Takeshi: I think the duo who can make a difference for their team is Suno and Winged for the sake of being Mid and Jungler,thus having more impact on the map early in the game than Olleh and Lactea who are Top and Support.

To finish, i would like to thank you a lot for the opportunity of interviewing you and leave this space for you to make your final statements!

CNB Takeshi: I would like to thank GosuGamers for this interview and all fans who support CNB e-Sports. We are doing everything possible to do well in this stage of the playoffs with all our strength and we have the support of all of you. In addition thanks to the CNB organization and also would like to thank all of our sponsors (X5 Computadores, CoolerMaster, NVIDIA, Avell, PHILIPS e HyperX)

Interview & Translation by: Gabriel "gabrielpumba" Melo

Formatting & Editing: Michale "DreXxiN" Lalor

​Photo Credit: Agency X5 and CNB e-Sports Club