2019 Play-In Profile: Flamengo Esports (FLA)

Fan-favorite Felipe “brTT” Gonçalves returns to the international stage with newcomers Flamengo Esports out of Brazil. This organization just qualified into the CBLoL for Split 2 last year, so qualifying to their first World Championship one and a half years later is an accomplishment. With some familiar faces and some new ones, Flamengo might be the most difficult Play-In team to predict this year. 

In Split 1 of 2019, Flamengo crushed the CBLoL. They only lost one game out of 21 and won the semifinals 3-0. However, when the MSI qualifier was on the line, Flamengo fell short and lost 2-3 to INTZ in the finals. Their Split 2 regular season was less dominant, with a 16-5 record, but this time they pulled through with a 3-2 revenge win over INTZ after another 3-0 in semifinals. Flamengo truly earned their Worlds spot over veteran organizations INTZ and KaBuM!. 

BrTT has played professionally since 2013, in which time he has qualified to two International Wildcard Qualifiers, one World Championship, and one MSI Play-In. Lee “Shrimp” Byeong-hoon has spent most of his career in North America, with a short stint in Japan. He and Bruno “Goku” Miyaguchi have been pros since 2015, but neither has international experience.. Leonardo “Robo” Souza also started his career in 2015 and played MSI 2017 Play-Ins with brTT. Han “Luci” Chang-hoon has the least experience, playing mostly Challenger-level in China and Korea since 2016. 

Flamengo’s Korean Jungler and Support are involved in roughly 70 percent of the team’s kills. Shrimp and Luci are assistive tanks, mostly playing Sejuani and Tahm Kench. BrTT, Robo and Goku spread their damage pretty evenly between them, and the team has a 78 percent Baron control rate. Flamengo does not have the highest gold difference or tower difference at 15. However, they have the highest gold differential per minute, the highest Dragon and Baron control, and the lowest amount of turrets lost on average. When they get a lead they can close out in clean fashion. 

The CBLoL used to be a top minor region. In 2015 paiN Gaming qualified to the Worlds Main Stage as a Wildcard representative. The following year it was INTZ. From 2017 onward, Brazilian teams have slowly fallen behind Turkish, CIS, and even Japanese teams at international events. At Worlds 2018, KaBuM! tied DetonatioN FocusMe at 1-3 in Play-Ins, but lost the tiebreaker. At MSI 2019, INTZ finished last place among Play-In teams, only winning one game over MEGA. Flamengo will most likely finish towards the bottom of the pack.

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