Kscerato went from the lan house in the favela to the Counter-Strike Cup finals

São Paulo

The Brazilian e-sport world held its breath during the PGL (Professional Gamers League) playoffs, a kind of World Cup. There was the Brazilian team FURIA that reached the quarterfinals to face the Russians from Gambit in the Counter-Strike game.

This edition in Stockholm, Sweden, was the first official face-to-face championship —called the Major— since the stoppage caused by the pandemic.

It was an electrifying match, with the right to comebacks, extra time and tension. The packed audience roared in front of huge screens, the stage shook with the end of the rounds. Fireworks were set off, narrators gasped at the twists of the scoreboard as the online audience passed the one-million-species mark.

In the midst of this melting pot, Kaike Cerato, Kscerato, the Brazilian ace, was calm. “I’m not attached to the social network, I only focus on my work, I grew up playing in a LAN house”, said the player to F5 by a direct video call from Serbia — the country is widely used by e-sport teams for intensive training. “I feel at home when I play with the fans.”

He’s packed and ready to arrive in Finland at the end of this month for his last engagement, a Counter-Strike doubles championship.

Born in Jardim Helena, one of the poorest regions of São Paulo, on the east side, in 1999, Kscerato has been playing Counter-Strike since he was nine years old. Game known simply as CS, it is a tactical shooter, with one team playing the role of police and the other a terrorist.

It’s been a fever in Brazil for decades. It appeared in the late 1990s as a modification of “Half-Life” and helped boost Internet cafes across the country. In 2008, it became prohibited by justice, which motivated scenes such as a protest of 30 people in the Masp’s free span. Currently, “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” has over 1 million simultaneous players.

Kscerato’s family encouraged him. His three-year-old brother Kauan, also e-athlete Kncerato, was one of his first training partners. “I used to curse everyone in the Internet cafe, my brother had to defend me”, says Kaique, who has been playing in championships since he was ten years old.

In this beginning of gambling, a relative even opened a LAN house. The business has not moved. “It was difficult to maintain, high investment is needed and the region has a lot of flooding”. The lack of infrastructure against flooding is a old complaint in the region.

Despite the setbacks, the e-athlete’s career took off. In 2018, he was hired by FURIA Esports, with a quick passage through the base team and arrival in the main team. In addition to Kscerato, the team is made up of art, VINI, drop and yuurih. The latter form a Bebeto-Romário-style duo, which fans have nicknamed “Yurato”. “We were collecting moments, creating a brotherly connection, we understand each other’s thoughts”, says Cerato.

The pandemic put a stop to in-person disputes, took everything online. According to Kscerato, it is an environment that gives Europeans an advantage. “They are in comfortable homes, with their family, just playing CS.”

Even so, FURIA grew. Founded four years ago, it has placed its emblem on the world e-sports scene. In 2020, the team won major titles such as the ESL Pro League and the DreamHack Open Summer.

Kscerato has also evolved, even changing the way you hold the mouse. If two years ago he used the corner of the pivot table to run the gun’s sights sideways, today he supports his forearm, a more usual posture.

The climax of the meteoric rise came at PGL, with the classification for the quarter finals. Neymar, a PSG player who sometimes seems to take CS more seriously than football, said publicly your support for Brazilians. “Today is @kscerato’s clutch day”, tweeted the national team striker. “Clutch” is Kscerato’s trademark slang for turn-at-hand.

The match was played — mainly in the first map, with extension rights. However, the Brazilians were eliminated. Gambit confirmed the favoritism and won with a score of 2-0, with partials of 19 x 17, in Inferno, and 16 x 10, in Overpass.

“We lacked rapport, we had some bad timings. But I could see that the guys are not as good in offline disputes as they are online”, says Kscerato. According to him, the internal conversations after the match were healthy. “I watched the best moments of the Gaules broadcast, the vibe was incredible.”

Gaules is Alexandre Borba, popular streamer and former CS athlete. It is he who narrates and comments on the most important matches. After FURIA’s match against Gambit, he posted that its broadcast peaked at 342,000 simultaneous users and a total audience of 1.1 million viewers. In recent months, Gaules has been breaking successive records within the Twitch platform, which specializes in live streaming of games.

“If we won, there would be a fire truck parade in the favela”, says Cerato, who declares he is dying to go back to drinking sugarcane juice on the east side.