MIBR have announced the departure of coach Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado from their lineup with immediate effect.

The departure of zews marks the end of a fifteen-month tenure for the 32-year-old as a part of MIBR, a roster with whom he reunited with in December 2018 as part of a transfer agreement with Liquid that also included the exchange of Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip and Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo.

While Liquid went on to find success with their new addition, winning five titles in a row and the second season of the Intel Grand Slam in 63 days, MIBR struggled to post results. The team failed to achieve a grand finals berth over the course of 22 events played since zews and TACO's additions, with their best placements coming from 3-4th place finishes at IEM Katowice 2019 and the CS:GO Asia Championships.

zews' time on MIBR has come to an end after a little over a year

The team's lacklustre results were compounded by continuous changes to their roster as MIBR sought out replacements for Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David and João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos, eventually settling upon Ignacio "⁠meyern⁠" Meyer and Vito "⁠kNgV-⁠" Giuseppe. Still, their results did not improve as they placed last at cs_summit 5, and were unable to prevail in their group at DreamHack Open Anaheim and BLAST Premier Spring Series.

In a statement written in Portuguese on Twitter, zews explained that the team felt they were "not even close to achieving the success they wanted during this rebuilding phase for MIBR" and took his share of the blame, saying he failed to make calls he thought were necessary for the rehabilitation of the team and for settling for certain decisions that were made.

"I'd like to say that I believe MIBR's problems are closer to getting solved, but unfortunately I don't know if I believe that to be the case," zews went on to say. "The problems I found here are heavier, more complex and more deeply embedded than they seem to be, and in my opinion the solutions tend to be more complex as well - requiring a bigger change to the roster and/or to its culture. I do not wish to give excuses or to create problems, I take my blame, but at the same time, I have to analyse the situation to be able to learn from it and to continue to evolve as a professional.

"As for my future, nothing is settled. My wish is to continue competing and dedicating myself to this esport that I love. Due to the global crisis and COVID-19 I will stay in the US analysing my options. In case you believe your organisation and I have something valuable to add to each other, please contact me: wiltonzews@outlook.com."

UPDATE: Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo revealed during a stream on Twitch that team manager Ricardo "⁠dead⁠" Sinigaglia will take zews' place and act as MIBR's coach, and added that the team are not in search of a new coach at this time.

MIBR's lineup now looks as follows: