The messy divorce between Marcelo “coldzera” David and MiBR may finally be official.
MiBR coach Wilton “zews” Prado announced on Twitter that the team has benched the star player. This carries potentially serious ramifications when it comes to the team’s standing in the StarLadder Berlin Major.
“Today I’m here to officially announce that Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David is no longer on the starting roster of MIBR and has been placed on the bench effective immediately,” Zews said in a statement. “Following our elimination at ESL One Cologne he expressed his desire to be transferred. Many individual and team meetings were held in order to be sure that this was something he really wanted to pursue.”
The core of MiBR has been one of the world’s top Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams for a long while now, but rumors of internal strife have lingered for over a year. In 2018, reports circulated that Coldzera was set to leave the team following the FACEIT Major: London. Coldzera remained with MiBR for another major cycle, but whispers of a desire to leave the team persisted.
Since the IEM Katowice Major, MiBR has gone into a sharp decline. The team posted disappointing performances at a number of prominent events including World Electronic Sports Games 2018, StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 7, and the ECS Season 7 Finals. Most recently, MiBR was among the first eliminations from ESL One Cologne.
Those consistently forgettable results have likely exacerbated the situation. The organization recently enlisted the help of a psychologist to help the team overcome its issues but these efforts seemingly haven’t paid off.
As it stands, MiBR is currently scheduled to compete at BLAST Pro Series: Los Angeles and Intel Extreme Masters XIV Chicago. Though there are unlikely to be any issues with substituting Zews for these events, things start getting tricky when it comes to the major.
As detailed by a report by Dexerto, MiBR will be forced to compete with coldzera in Berlin. While Zews could be substituted in for that event in case of an “emergency situation,” it is unknown if coldzera requesting his benching out of frustration over poor results in other tournaments and would qualify as such.
Regardless of what happens from here, it looks as though Coldzera’s days with MiBR and his longtime teammates are coming to an end.
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