And although the kills flameZ got were more impactful than most, leading to round wins 70.5% of the time (2nd) and multi-kills 83% of the time (6th), he had the lowest fragging output of players in the top 20 (0.68 KPR). He was also not very impressive in round wins overall with a 0.92 KPRW and a kill in only 57.8% of round wins, again the lowest of all players in the top 20. Winning Cologne could have marked a new period of success for Vitality after a difficult start to the year, but any momentum they hoped to ride off of the victory was Flamez brought to a grinding halt after they were cast out in the quarter-finals of ESL Pro League Season 20 by Eternal Fire. “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.
Join our Discord community to discuss CS2 utility strategies, share experiences, and get the latest updates with fellow players. Finally, we observed on the player cameras the intense emotions of Team Vitality’s captain, apEX, throughout the series. We asked flameZ to shed some light on what was being communicated within the team during those highly charged moments.
- Finally, we observed on the player cameras the intense emotions of Team Vitality’s captain, apEX, throughout the series.
- “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.”
- The duo have been on NAVI’s academy roster since October 2023 and put up impressive numbers in 2024, with makazze averaging a 1.19 rating (1.34 impact) over 189 maps and Krabeni averaging a 1.10 rating (1.17 impact) over 203 maps.
- 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.
- It started with the Israeli spacetaker tallying his highest-rated map of 2024, a 2.47 rating in a 13-0 over Astralis, and was followed by five maps with a 1.23 rating or better (three above 1.40).
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FlameZ, who had become one of the hottest prospects in Counter-Strike thanks to his performances on OG, now steps into one of the best teams in the world where he can hopefully realize his full potential. 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. Stay tuned to our Top 20 Players of 2024 ranking and learn more about how the players were selected in our introduction article. Seventh was as high as he could go, though, as the group above outperformed flameZ in most ways, both award-wise and statistically. Considering the names around him and especially above, the aforementioned awards were not the strongest, as he was never in MVP contention other than in Cologne. “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.”
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“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.” “At the start, it was tough because he was way older than me and sometimes things got personal in the game with common team issues,” he says. Known for his aggressive play, pinpoint aim, and sharp utility usage, he helped Vitality win IEM Cologne 2024 and multiple BLAST events.
- 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.
- 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.
- FlameZ found immediate success upon his move, making it to the semi-final of IEM Cologne in only his second event with the team and lifting a trophy at Gamers8 immediately afterward, where he was also named an EVP with a 1.12 rating.
- OG barely missed out on qualifying for PGL Major Stockholm, the first after the pandemic, and exited in groups at IEM Winter to end the year on a sour note.
- He put in another strong shift against FaZe (1.20 rating) and started well against Astralis in the semi-final, but deflated showings on three maps — two coming against MOUZ in the final — stopped him short of another EVP as he ended the event with a 1.06 rating overall (0.98 in playoffs).
- His consistent showings against the best teams, 1.25 playoff rating, 1.02 KPRW, and 99.5 ADRW sealed the case for his second EVP of the year, but Vitality still went into the tournament break without lifting a piece of silverware.
Block title
Freshly crowned IEM Melbourne 2025 champions, winners of the prestigious ESL Grand Slam, and riding an incredible 21-series win streak – it’s Team Vitality! A young star who continues to impress at every event he attends, he and mezii have reinvigorated this Vitality team and will possibly be the main reasons as to why they stay at the very top for a long time coming. “Krabeni deserves a shoutout as well, I feel like they will be super good as a duo. But I was also very happy to play with both of them individually and was super impressed.” The duo have been on NAVI’s academy roster since October 2023 and put up impressive numbers in 2024, with makazze averaging a 1.19 rating (1.34 impact) over 189 maps and Krabeni averaging a 1.10 rating (1.17 impact) over 203 maps. FlameZ recovered to a 1.08 average (1.14 playoffs), which was good enough for another VP mention before the team traveled to Shanghai for the Europe RMR. FlameZ missed out on a VP or EVP mention for the second time this year with a 0.99 rating, but wasted no time in entering a renaissance at BLAST Fall Final where he had his best event of the year.
Despite a year with only one trophy, albeit at the prestigious IEM Cologne, flameZ says there isn’t a specific moment or memory that he would rather forget. FlameZ continued to be exceptional under the bright lights of the Royal Arena against Cloud9, posting a 1.28 rating on Inferno and putting on another masterclass on Anubis (2.03 rating, 18-6 K-D) for a swift berth through to the semi-final, but there Vitality had their Major run halted by FaZe. Losses to ENCE and HEROIC, the series against the latter featuring a win and two defeats, gave a brutal reality check to a Vitality that arrived in Poland hoping to coast off their late 2023 success. “I got different positions and ruggah and kakafu wanted me to have more responsibility which was very valuable for me to explore myself, and the org was always seeking improvement and added people to try to help us in the mental aspect which was very beneficial to me.” OG barely missed out on qualifying for PGL Major Stockholm, the first after the pandemic, and exited in groups at IEM Winter to end the year on a sour note. Aleksib was traded for Nemanja “nexa” Isaković at the start of 2022, but a last-place exit at IEM Katowice and failing to qualify for PGL Major Antwerp brought about more changes with Maciej “F1KU” Miklas, Adam “NEOFRAG” Zouhar, and Abdul “degster” Gasanov joining mid-way through the year.
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However, now six months into his tenure with the team and with three trophies already added to their cabinet, every question has been left answered. That is according to Sebastien “KRL” Perez, who has reported that Spinx is expected to leave Vitality in 2025 after both sides “expressed mutual interest in parting ways.” The French insider was also the first to report flameZ’s contract extension. The announcement of the Israeli’s contract extension came just two days before the start of Vitality’s campaign in the Perfect World Shanghai Major Europe RMR A, where the team will fight for one of seven spots at the Major on offer. Shahar “flameZ” Shushan and Vitality have agreed to extend the Israeli player’s contract until the end of 2027, the organization announced Friday. BLIX got the chance to sit down with flameZ following his move, discussing his thoughts on his time on OG, as well as what it’s like to replace someone like dupreeh.
Interview with flameZ
His consistent showings against the best teams, 1.25 playoff rating, 1.02 KPRW, and 99.5 ADRW sealed the case for his second EVP of the year, but Vitality still went into the tournament break without lifting a piece of silverware. FlameZ found immediate success upon his move, making it to the semi-final of IEM Cologne in only his second event with the team and lifting a trophy at Gamers8 immediately afterward, where he was also named an EVP with a 1.12 rating. The roster led by Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen immediately made an impression, finishing as runners-up at IEM Summer and reaching the semi-final of ESL Pro League Season 14. FlameZ mustered 1.10 and 1.20 ratings in those efforts, showing he could perform against the best European teams, and slowly OG inched up the world rankings. At the turn of the year, four players in HLTV’s Top 20 Players of 2020 list named flameZ as their Bold Prediction — a projection that took four years to come true. Four months into 2021, flameZ got called up to OG to replace Issa “ISSAA” Murad, getting the opportunity to consistently test his abilities against top international opposition.
Seeing Lotan “Spinx” Giladi and Guy “anarkez” Trachtman compete in cups featured on HLTV and having the chance to qualify for FPL-C — where Israeli players could break out internationally — offered an extra level of motivation. It became too hard for flameZ to juggle school, team practice, and pick-up games, and five months in, he stepped back from Finest to focus entirely on qualifying for FPL-C. FlameZ was Vitality’s third-best player with a 1.24 rating in the Elimination Stage, just 0.01 below Spinx, and he carried that through into the playoffs with a team-leading 1.54 rating on Nuke for a 1-0 start to the series. He was the only one to go positive on Vitality (1.22 rating) in an 8-13 defeat on Mirage, but dropped off on the decider (0.68) as FaZe stole away the victory and brought Vitality’s season to a dismal end. 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.
The ESL Grand Slam is an incredibly rare achievement, with Vitality’s triumph at IEM Melbourne marking only the eighth instance of a team accomplishing this feat. We asked flameZ about the pressure the team faced in this grand final, knowing the Grand Slam was within their grasp. This gold sticker was autographed by professional player Shahar Hai Shoshan playing for Vitality at the BLAST.tv Austin 2025 CS2 Major Championship.
The team was hamstrung early into their effort, however, when illness befell ZywOo and left Vitality with a deflated superstar when it mattered most. “Before the season started it felt really good, we came with confidence and I was already thinking ahead of time that this was our year as a team, but I’m not sure if it was the pressure or just that our effort didn’t match our expectations.” “But to be honest, I loved sitting behind shushan and watching him play. And later on when I got a PC, it was my place to be social with people, to talk, share experiences, and have a common goal. Also to some extent, it was an escape route that made me feel really at peace.”
FlameZ secures seventh place in his debut appearance on the Top 20 Players of the Year list by 1xBet and SkinClub thanks to an impressive stat sheet in the toughest environments.
“We expected and felt like we played well at the time, but we were not able to close this close match against them. This best-of-three was also tough for us back then with the veto, but EF proved to be very lethal against any team. FlameZ took home his third EVP of the year in Cologne courtesy of his 1.19 rating (1.14 playoff rating) and continued consistency throughout the tournament (1.01 KPRW, 101.7 ADRW) and against the best teams (1.20 vs top-five, six maps). FlameZ added that the experience in Cologne was his favorite moment of the year, emphasizing his appreciation of the team environment and how hard Vitality fought for the title. “It felt like we were a really solid family, and lifting the trophy is super nice obviously but the journey there was extremely unforgettable.” FlameZ led the server in the win over The MongolZ (1.49 rating) and against Complexity in Vitality’s qualifying series (1.19 rating), with his K-D, 116.9 ADR, and 1.79-rated performance making all the difference on the Anubis decider to edge out a narrow victory. FlameZ and mezii headed to Copenhagen for the Major proper looking for their first Major titles, with the added pressure of Vitality fighting to defend their status as reigning Major champions.