“Last year, they realised that as much as they’d like to, truly great AWPers are rarely made in Brazil. Taking in kl1m was a gamble, but he’s comfortably shown since signing on that he beats all the South America-based AWPers, bar molodoy.”

I was quite high on kl1m going into Cologne, and going by the cost of his signature, I hit the nail on the head. Frankly, one of my better pieces written for the TLDR newsletter-

“Calling for MIBR to make it out of Stage One should be a given, but we’ll go further - these kids will challenge for a playoff spot.”

Ah, shove it. Who do you think I am - Nostradamus?

In the fallout of the Major, MIBR retaining the services of kl1m was impossible. It probably happened at the right time, though, as two players well-positioned to replace him were on the market.

As reported by Dust2 Brasil, try and nqz were both of interest to the team, and in the end they managed to land the latter. The former is instead set to land in Legacy, replacing saadzin to make that squad even more dangerous heading into the fall season.

The thing is - this is a huge upgrade.

The Brazilian really can’t stack up to kl1m aim-wise, but that’s about the only thing the young Russian has going for him. I wasn’t super impressed by his Major performance - modern AWPers need to throw a lot of utility and communicate a lot, kid - and it seems from the outside looking in that he’s somewhat difficult to work with.

nqz, on the other hand, comes in well rested with extensive tier one experience, and wisdom to spare for his younger teammates. He’s no slouch on the big green either, and I’m keen to see how he plays under LNZ.

You might think I’m way out of line saying kl1m isn’t all that, but it’s an indictment when a team who can have him for free, and are vacating his spot anyway, don’t even take him.

Take a guess who it is - the name rhymes with “pee poo”.