flameZ: “We’ve gained the instinct we needed, we’re just running at people and f*cking everybody up”

He played at one last Major with them, finishing 12-14th at the Challengers Stage of the BLAST.tv Paris Major, and after IEM Dallas the newly-crowned Paris Major champions Vitality came knocking for his services. He spent seven months competing for the British organization in online tournaments as the coronavirus pandemic kept teams away from LAN, and his performances soon drew the interest of other organizations as the return to offline play drew near. The move to Endpoint offered flameZ his first true shot at regular tier-two competition, and with them he won ESEA MDL Season 35 Europe (averaging a 1.25 rating over 29 maps) and qualified for his first season of ESL Pro League. “I feel like there were many moments or people that changed something for me or my mindset toward going pro,” flameZ says. “The first one would be the qualification to FPL/FPL-C. This made me grind and sort of push, maybe not with the sole intent of going pro, but enjoying the circuit and improving.

flameZ CSGO Gaming Gear

That changed when Uniquestars, Israel’s best team, lost to MVP PK at IeSF World Championship — to the surprise of players in Israel who did not know any of the other teams at the event – and after Noah “⁠buue⁠” Nethanel Türnpu became the first Israeli player to qualify for FPL in December 2017. “In Malta I was really demotivated sadly, I had a lot of excuses and wasn’t professional at all,” he explains of his up-and-down performances post-Cologne. “But I was really excited for Denmark. Around this time I feel like a lot of things popped up in the team which was tough for me to handle at the time and made my showing wobbly.” “During my time with apEX, he has always told me that it is never guaranteed you will be on the winning side and even reaching playoffs and being able to compete on big stages is something we should be thankful for,” flameZ says when asked how he reflects on Vitality’s only title victory of the year. “I’m early on in my career and I’m very glad to have such a big trophy to my name with many more years to accomplish more. Vitality returned to action at Esports World Cup in July after the break but were cast out early after a loss to Virtus.pro in their second match, with flameZ missing out on a VP or EVP mention for the first time in the year after finishing with a meager 1.00 rating and three out of five maps in the red.

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• ZywOo put up mind-boggling 2.97 and 2.68 ratings to get his side past GamerLegion and HEROIC in the best-of-one openers, and the team recovered from a loss to Cloud9 in the 2-0 pool by exacting revenge for Katowice over ENCE in two maps (where flameZ averaged a 1.51 rating) to advance to the Major.
• FlameZ joined Vitality in mid-2023 on a free transfer from OG and quickly established himself as an X-factor player for Vitality.
• “In my opinion, there is no wrong in losing if you are learning and feel that there is progress,” he says about what was going wrong for Vitality around this point.
• We asked flameZ to shed some light on what was being communicated within the team during those highly charged moments.
• Vitality had little time to recover from that defeat as the Europe RMR for PGL Major Copenhagen approached, but they met that challenge with aplomb.
• After the game, we caught up with flameZ to discuss that revenge story, JACKZ’s level at World Final, and how important this momentum can be to Vitality doing even more damage at the event.

Vitality started 2024 as the top-ranked team in the world, riding the wave of their Fall and World Final trophy lifts into the new year, but would soon find themselves washed ashore in a deflating start to their season. “Not making the Majors and being very inconsistent in the important games made me realize I had to start exploring myself and get better at the mental game,” flameZ says. “Then when the new roster came around with F1KU, NEOFRAG, and so on, it became a grind together and I was very committed.” “I had to become more professional. With Endpoint it was the COVID era, we just played online, and I wasn’t professional many times but joining OG and going to bootcamps I had to change for good.”

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He was among the contenders for the MVP award but was pipped by teammate ZywOo, who wasn’t quite as consistent as flameZ throughout the event but stepped up when it mattered most in the playoffs to consign his teammate to an EVP instead. A rejuvenated Vitality arrived at BLAST Fall Groups, a 1.19 average rating by flameZ and overall elevation by the team seeing them bounce past GamerLegion and Astralis (twice) to provide some much-needed confidence ahead of the next Super-Elite event of the year, IEM Cologne. “He was really sick and playing badly, but he kept giving energy, hyping us, and doing everything he could. For a player who expects and everybody expects him to do well, it was really nice to see him this way, and it made me believe more in the team.”

• FlameZ recorded a 0.78 rating in a 0-2 loss to Spirit, but even with a stand-in Vitality recovered by defeating Liquid and MOUZ to reach the semi-final before toppling to G2.
• Vitality played BLAST World Final with Audric “⁠JACKZ⁠” Jug as a stand-in for mezii, who took time away after becoming a father, and the event in Singapore started in predictably poor fashion.
• Shahar “⁠flameZ⁠” Shushan and Vitality have agreed to extend the Israeli player’s contract until the end of 2027, the organization announced Friday.
• Stay tuned to our Top 20 Players of 2024 ranking and learn more about how the players were selected in our introduction article.
• He was among the contenders for the MVP award but was pipped by teammate ZywOo, who wasn’t quite as consistent as flameZ throughout the event but stepped up when it mattered most in the playoffs to consign his teammate to an EVP instead.

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The Israeli rifler had two stand-out maps against the eventual champions — once in the group stage on Dust2 (1.82 rating) and another in an overtime victory on Anubis in the grand final (1.49) — but also suffered from a few lows in the group stage and on the decider in the final. He improved from a 1.06 rating in groups to 1.14 in playoffs, but it wasn’t enough to make up the difference and edge him past teammate mezii for the final EVP. Vitality’s campaign in Flamez Germany started with utter domination over FURIA and a 1.87-rated map from flameZ, followed by a hard-fought 2-1 win over FaZe and 2-0 over MOUZ to lock in a spot in the playoffs.

Vitality flameZ: “Great teams win ugly sometimes and this was an ugly win for us”

“I was really happy that it was my first team in the professional scene and super happy the organization didn’t take advantage of my inexperience. They treated me fairly and were super helpful during the whole period.” “So it was a big boost to my motivation. He was a big voice in and outside the team, always down to talk about CS, life, or anything else and share his mindset and his view on things. I liked him a lot and still like him a lot, he is a player that I have always wanted to compete with at this high level.” Focus in Israel soon turned to international competition and on making a name for yourself in FPL, but flameZ was still under 16 and ineligible to compete in qualifiers for most big events. He had to step back any time the team wanted to compete in big qualifiers, which at one point caused him to quit playing CS for several months. We started by simply asking flameZ to articulate his immediate feelings about winning IEM Melbourne, securing the ESL Grand Slam title, and claiming the massive $1,000,000 prize.

Flamez King Size Regular vloei

FlameZ joined Vitality in mid-2023 on a free transfer from OG and quickly established himself as an X-factor player for Vitality. He has earned seven EVP nods for his highlight performances in that time, including four in their title runs at Gamers8, BLAST Premier Fall Final and BLAST Premier World Final in 2023 and IEM Cologne earlier this year. They may be playing with a stand-in, but with their dominant showing against MOUZ in today’s quarter-finals, Vitality have now advanced to the semi-finals of BLAST Premier World Final, where they will play G2. FlameZ named NAVI Junior rifler Drin “⁠makazze⁠” Shaqiri as his Bold Prediction, becoming the second player to do so after Helvijs “⁠broky⁠” Saukants, and also gave a nod to makazze’s teammate, Aulon “⁠Krabeni⁠” Fazlija. His 1.13 rating in arena matches is once again even better than his average and even on par with the next group of players above. FlameZ averaged a 1.33 rating, 1.54 impact, 1.08 KPRW, and 117.2 ADRW over seven maps, but the team missed another shot at a title and flameZ couldn’t ride the individual high of his performance for long.
With that lineup, flameZ qualified for his first Major, playing in the Challengers Stage of IEM Rio 2022 and falling just short of advancing to the top-16 after losing to Vitality in a three-map series. OG were far from title contenders, however, with flameZ and degster often relied upon for any upset wins, and one of their only notable playoff appearances came at BLAST World Final 2022 with a run to the semis over HEROIC and Vitality. It was an intense experience for the crowd, but even more so for the players who had to maintain peak performance through it all. Vitality have been on a great run of late with wins at IEM Rio 2023, the BLAST.tv Paris Major and a grand final appearance at BLAST Premier Spring Final 2023. Success did little to quench their thirst for improvement however, and as rostermania roared into action they made the surprising move to replace legendary Danish entry fragger Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen with Israeli star Shahar “flameZ” Shushan.