Legacy are flying high after their FISSURE Playground victory saw them rise to number two in the VRS.
They should be anyway, but their momentum has been dented by Andrei “arT” Piovezan contracting meningitis.
Eduardo “dumau” Wolkmer called the news a “big shock” and “tough” as he explained to HLTV about how an old teammate of his, Matheus “bruttJ” Queiroz had previously died from the same illness.
Fortunately, arT is on the mend, and Legacy can set their sights back on in-game matters for the Thunderpick World Championship later this month, with ESL Pro League something of a free hit with stand-in analyst Pedro “bobz” Rocha.
Listen to the interview here.
Okay. First of all, how is arT? I mean, obviously it’s a big blow to not have him here.
Yeah. Now we had good news. He’s getting much better, and he’s probably coming to Malta to play at Thunderpick. So for us, very good. It was a surprise for us to see him in this way. I already had, in the past, one guy with me called bruttJ, and he died. He was a player, and he died of meningitis. But for me, it was a big shock when I found out about arT, and yeah, it was tough.
Read more
arT out of ESL Pro League S24 with meningitis
That’s good news then that he’s getting better. So in terms of the actual tournament, though, how much does it hurt your momentum to not have arT with you now?
That’s uncontrollable. We don’t have too many thoughts about it. Even if it happens, we go 0-3 or something that is very bad, we are not going to be mad, like it’s fucking up our momentum or something. We can bounce back after if it’s necessary. So just now it’s just a moment that we have to accept and just try to do our best. And yeah.
That’s the best feeling, and that’s the thing that everybody from our team is looking forward to have again
Last time we saw you guys play, it was obviously FPG, and you’re now No. 2 on the VRS. Can you tell me about how that feels to do so well this season so far?
That’s very, very good. It was our goal to be champions in China three times in a row. And yeah, we did it, but we have now more things. We have now EPL, we have Malta… There are a lot of tournaments, so we are looking at them one by one and try to see and adapt to each tournament to win. Because I think we have way too much room to improve, and then we can win a lot of games and win a tournament.
Is it hard with how many tournaments there are to kind of enjoy the moment of winning a trophy like that? Because, like you say, you win a trophy and then you’re already thinking about the next tournament.
In life, every day should be joyful, or it should be enjoyed, you know? We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, even though we like to have a schedule and everything. We have to enjoy every day and, every win that we get, or try to learn from every loss. That’s important. We are human, so we have to enjoy every day, and we have to have these celebrations with tournaments and really enjoy and look at each other, I don’t know, like eating a burger after a game, and winning a tournament. That’s the best feeling, or being around everybody and everybody being a part of this win. That’s, that’s amazing and that’s the best feeling, and that’s the thing that everybody from our team is looking forward to having again. Yeah.
latto and dumau love playing in China
So for the rest of the year, obviously it’s bigger tournaments coming up. Maybe not this one for obvious reasons, but what would it feel like to do it again, but at an even bigger tournament with even better teams?
It’s going to be better and better. The feelings will be, to be honest, the same, because it’s not about the other teams or other things. It’s about how much we are sacrificing and how much we are leaving behind every time and how much work we are putting in because we have, as Brazilians, more things to sacrifice than other people. And not saying that other people are not demanding or anything. We’re just saying that we have left so much behind already, and our time cannot be wasted by any moment. So that’s it. Just have to enjoy and be present. Play CS, that’s the thing we chose in our lives, and that’s it. Yeah.
A lot of time is just by traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling, so we have to enjoy these moments
What do you mean by leaving things behind? Is it just being further away from home than other pros? What do you kind of mean by that?
Yeah. As every pro, we have made this choice and sacrifice of leaving too much behind. You choose your time to be a professional player or because you love it, first of all. And then you have to leave things behind and make the people have better lives, like your family or friends or anything, and especially too much time because we have to travel a lot. A lot of time is just spent traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling. So we have to enjoy these moments and not regret anything.
I also wanted to ask about Brazilian teams more generally because of obviously the news of the election and the gambling ban and LOUD dropping their team and things like that. It’s a bit of a weird atmosphere around the Brazilian scene right now. Have you got any thoughts on that?
I don’t know how it’s going to be now, to be honest with you. I think it breaks some projects in Brazil from a lot of teams, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with projects or anything. I don’t know. I don’t have an opinion about it. I just have to see it with time, if it’s going to be good or bad for people in general, and that’s it.
Read more
LOUD drop unannounced CS team
And back to this tournament: obviously it’s your analyst, bobz, playing. Can you tell me, has he got hands? How good is he?
Bro, he’s very good. To be honest, we played against each other a lot of times in Brazil when I was much younger, when I was 14 or 13. We played at LANs against each other, region-
Regional LANs?
… regional LANs. Yes. And he was like 15 or 16, and I was 14 or 13, stuff like this because Bobz is very young. He’s 24 years old now and, yeah, now he’s weird to see, ‘Okay, he was an analyst, now he’s playing with us.’ But, bro, he’s a very nice guy and he worries about us a lot, how he can help us. He’s trying his best, to be honest. Individually, I can see he’s working a lot and even as a person, he just worries about people and about what we need, and that’s it. It’s going to be nice playing with him, and he’s going to enjoy it a lot, yeah.
Will he be calling, just to check?
Yes. Yes, he’s going to be calling. We’re going to help each other. We’re going to try to make the best calls that we have in our minds and just be communicating around the map and that’s it. Playing CS, you know?
