“I just know we didn’t push ourselves and just expected to win. It was something big for us that we worked on a lot in the end, just giving energy no matter the opponent.” “It was very weird,” flameZ says of how winning two trophies at the end of the year set up expectations coming into 2024. “We just got mezii and had a staff change and it instantly clicked, we were all hyped and won these back-to-back BLASTs. By the time 2023 rolled around, flameZ was on the wishlist of many organizations and his contract with OG was running out.

  • “I feel like there were many moments or people that changed something for me or my mindset toward going pro,” flameZ says.
  • Seventh was as high as he could go, though, as the group above outperformed flameZ in most ways, both award-wise and statistically.
  • A flat 0.94 rating and three maps rated 0.78 or below left flameZ without a VP or EVP for the third and final time in 2024.
  • 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.
  • “On the other hand, it got better with time, we always had good chemistry in the game, shared similar ideas, and also he has always been very creative so playing next to him was easy to adapt to as rifler.”
  • We asked flameZ about the pressure the team faced in this grand final, knowing the Grand Slam was within their grasp.

Наклейка FlameZ (металлическая) Остин-2025

“The Dallas one, well we obviously had this game against G2 and lost to a comeback, but this did not make me lose any belief in the team,” flameZ says. FlameZ missed out on an EVP again in Dallas, where Vitality came up short in the title decider to a G2 who completed a fairytale run to the trophy with Jake “⁠Stewie2K⁠” Yip as a stand-in. A loss to Eternal Fire in the Elimination Stage’s opener — where ZywOo was the only one who finished positive for Vitality — could have spelled doom for the reigning Major champions, but flameZ and Spinx took the reins to help charge past The MongolZ, Imperial, and Complexity to reach the playoffs. FlameZ ended the tournament with a 1.08 rating and a VP mention despite Vitality’s immediate exit thanks largely to him having a few solid maps without any real disappearances.

Thunderpick World Championship 2025 Finals Set for Malta

FlameZ tallied a team-leading 1.40 series rating in exDT’s semi-final win over ShapeShift, but finished as runners-up to Aequus. A confident display, their stars were firing on all cylinders across the two maps they played against the German organisation, and there’s now a belief within the team that they can get revenge on G2 for their loss in the final of IEM Dallas earlier this year. His 1.11 overall rating only improved with the competition getting harder, as his 1.16 Elite+ (5th), 1.15 Super-Elite+ (8th) and 1.14 Major (8th) ratings show, and unlike most he didn’t drop off when playing against the best teams, averaging a 1.10 rating vs. top 5 (7th) and 1.09 rating vs. top 10 (9th) teams. FlameZ secures seventh place in his debut appearance on the Top 20 players of the year list thanks to an impressive stat sheet in the toughest competitions and against the best teams.

Shahar “flameZ” Shushan

They started their campaign with an imperious 13-0 over OG, but their path through the event wasn’t without trouble, including a lost series to Astralis in the upper bracket semi-final and a pair of tight, three-map series against Falcons and in a rematch against Astralis in the group final to qualify. The young Israeli also played his first international LAN when offline play returned at the Play-in stage for IEM Cologne, where he averaged a 1.01 rating in five maps after a poor series against BIG dragged his numbers down. “The coach, the players, the CEO, everybody in this project made me feel like I could be myself and just grind with them, finish practice and stay in TeamSpeak until late at night playing FACEIT every day. FlameZ regularly played for exDT alongside shushan early in his career, recording his first recorded officials on HLTV with the team at Game In Mako Fest in March 2018.

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

  • “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.
  • 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.
  • “The Major obviously is a hard tournament, but the challenge of being together for a month with a not-so-optimal relationship was tough on many. In the end, we gave our best, and if you do that you can’t judge yourself.”
  • It was an intense experience for the crowd, but even more so for the players who had to maintain peak performance through it all.
  • “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.”
  • FlameZ ended the tournament with a 1.08 rating and a VP mention despite Vitality’s immediate exit thanks largely to him having a few solid maps without any real disappearances.

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. His worst event of the year followed at IEM Rio, where Vitality lost to HEROIC in the group stage upper bracket final and were eliminated in the quarter-finals by MOUZ. A flat 0.94 rating and three maps rated 0.78 or below left flameZ without a VP or EVP for the third and final time in 2024. Local LANs offered flameZ and other youngsters the opportunity to prove themselves, but the Israeli scene remained isolated, focused mostly on forming the best teams to win the few local LANs held each year.

He played at one last Major with them, Flamez 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

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.