arT: "Picking up Lucaozy and decenty to Fluxo was a no-brainer"

Fluxo were one of the two Brazilian teams that flew to Windsor, Canada to participate in Fragadelphia 19. The team finished third place, a very good result considering they played their first LAN with former MIBR and Imperial riflers Lucas "Lucaozy" Neves and Lucas "decenty" Bacelar.

Dust2.us' Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore interviewed Andrei "arT" Piovezan right after their third-place decider match against BLUEJAYS to discuss Fluxo's campaign in FRAG, the loss to M80 in the semifinals, and get some insight into why they picked Lucaozy and decenty after the Austin Major.

The complete interview can be found below on YouTube, with key snippets underneath. The questions and answers were slightly edited for clarity and length.

I'm here with arT following their third-place win over BLUEJAYS. A pretty comprehensive win. How are you feeling coming out of that third-place decider?

It's a little bit more comfortable. Yesterday was tough, and we lost [to M8O]. We felt bad, but it's better that we won today.

You mentioned the loss to M80, which cost you a spot in the finals. How are you feeling about that match? Obviously, it was quite close against M80, which is the top-ranked NA squad. Do you think you put the best foot forward in that series?

No, definitely not. I think we had a lot of chances to make it work, and we had some advantages. Of course, Mirage was a one-sided map. We almost came back, but it was tough, we didn't play our best. We had just a few days of practice, like four days, just because the team is new. When we face a strong and consistent team like M80, you have to play better. It's not that hard to understand that. So, we need to play better and practice more.

Despite the lack of practice heading into this event, how do you feel about Fluxo's overall run here? Are you pleased with the way your team played across the whole event?

Yes, I do think I'm happy for the way we played. I think it was important for us to play like this, and we managed to slot decenty and Lucaozy into our team. We changed our star players, so they're going to new roles. It was always tough for us to make it work, and I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.

What influenced you to pick up Lucaozy and decenty after the Major? Especially Lucaozy, as he returns to Fluxo after being away for one year? What was the thought process in bringing these guys to Fluxo?

Of course, we weren't happy with the way that we were playing before. So, we needed to make some changes to change things up, and just be more competitive. We were struggling against tier-two teams in Brazil, and the tier-one teams [too]. It was tough for us. So, of course, when you have a possibility of bringing Lucaozy and decenty, you just bring in so much firepower into your team. That's just a no-brainer. They're very good and consistent players.

The next event for you on the calendar is going to be ESL Pro League Season 22, which is two months away. What are the priorities for preparing for that, and how do you think the team will evolve as we approach EPL?

I do think the main thing for us is practice. We need to scrim a lot and feel more comfortable playing the maps, and just increase our map pool. We mainly picked one map in this tournament, and we want to expand that to at least three maps that we can pick and feel very comfortable in. That comes with preparation and scrims in Brazil, so that's our only focus right now.