Rainbow 6
Brazil's largest Rainbow Six Siege streamer, Rafael "RazaH" Ribeiro, has continued his rapid ascent in the streaming world, with the Portuguese-language streamer hosting some of the highest-view watch parties in the scene. RazaH's success comes after three years of rapid growth after beginning as a streamer in 2020, however his roots in Rainbow Six Siege date back to 2015 when Ribeiro first picked up Ubisoft's tactical FPS.
As someone with his eye constantly on the game, BLIX's Rafael Ferreira spoke to RazaH about his career, the state of the Brazilian Rainbow Six Siege scene, and working with Liquid — one of the largest brands in Brazilian R6S.
RazaH's origins
As previously mentioned, RazaH began streaming Rainbow Six Siege in 2022, however he told BLIX that streaming did not come naturally to him, and it took a push from friends to get started:
"When I started to make [livestreams] I [couldn't] even imagine being where I am today, first of all, because I was very shy [to] show myself even in schoolwork. Although, my friends in TeamSpeak told me that I played Siege all day, why not start streaming and see if I go well. At first I didn’t have too much faith in that idea due to my shyness. They insisted several times with me, and I made my first live. After some time, I focused on that, and it worked out."
Watch Parties
Recently in Rainbow Six Siege Ubisoft has allowed community content creators to restream the official broadcast and add their own spin on it. For RazaH, this opened up a natural opportunity as he already closely followed the competitive scene:
"I always liked the competitive scene; I played competitively in XBOX in 2016 and I’ve followed since the first tournament. Since I watched the championships before even streaming, when I started streaming, I followed the tournaments live but without the official broadcast because Ubisoft didn’t allow it. I made livestreams for one and almost two years streaming the tournaments with only my webcam, commenting [on] the games. After two years streaming the tournaments in that way, Ubisoft allowed watch parties."
State of the Brazilian Scene
BLAST added a new off-season between two splits, something that is new to the community and was added this year. Asked for a comment about the long off-season, RazaH is clear:
“This off-season was the worst decision in the eight years of competitive Rainbow Six, by far. I believe most of the people agree with me on this one. More tournaments and more games are needed in this time because waiting four months for the next tournament is something that needs no comments, it’s something scary."
Despite this new format bringing new challenges, RazaH believes Brazil is still on top of the R6S scene:
"If you take a look there are a lot of Brazilians getting success internationally in the game, it’s not only one team. Individually we have a lot of good names in Brazil… achieving great things.”
Team Liquid
Joining one of the hugest organizations in the world is a big step, but it all started earlier for RazaH:
"I streamed [for] six months without the support of an organization but then SuperNova appeared, and I joined them. Following two months with them, 90% of the organizations in tier 1 approached me to join them. When Team Liquid joined the conversation I saw that as an easy decision to take. They have been investing in Siege since the beginning in Brazil, their work is fantastic. Liquid was the best organization in Brazilian territory, and it still is."
RazaH Company
One of the projects hyped the most in the Brazilian scene, RazaH company was built by the streamer with Marcus "Sneepy" Matos, former NIP coach and Ribeiretes, ranked player and another non-esports players RazaH knew from streaming.
To close their conversation, RazaH discussed the team, which has been playing in lower tournaments and facing bigger teams — surprising some of them — and enthralling viewers:
"That project came when Sneepy and I were playing ranked, and he suggested to me to create a team only for content. I thought the idea was cool and we called some players that are always in the stream like Ribeiretes. To join our trio, we called some players that were available in the market, and we were able to get some good results in local tournaments. Our purpose is not practicing all days in a fixed schedule, we just want to play and have fun."
