There may be teething issues, but flameZ should be more than comfortable in his role even Flamez if his exact spots might change. The Israeli actually has a lower overall rating than dupreeh over our sample size of MVP events in 2023, coming in at 1.02 compared to dupreeh’s 1.03. 72% KAST is impressive, but is inflated by how much flameZ would get assists or traded deaths as a bombsite entry for OG. Vitality’s newest arrival was ecstatic at the prospect of playing with one of the best payers in the world. «You get the chance to play with a guy that looks like one of the best teammates there is on the planet, the best player in the world statistics-wise, and he’s so good man.» »I think it was pretty good and that we could improve on a lot of things here and we can still find for ourselves what works for us well.
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. 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. «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.» «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 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 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. 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 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. 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.
Game Settings
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.
- Despite our talk of flameZ as an entry fragger so far, there is not much overlap between he and dupreeh on his default positions on T side.
- FlameZ joined Vitality in mid-2023 on a free transfer from OG and quickly established himself as an X-factor player for Vitality.
- «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.»
- The team was hamstrung early into their effort, however, when illness befell ZywOo and left Vitality with a deflated superstar when it mattered most.
- «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.
Team Vitality
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. It’s an interesting change and perhaps harsh on the five-time Major winner, who finally looked like he had adapted to what Vitality’s system required in the last few tournaments before the break. IGL Dan «apEX» Madesclaire started to use him as more of a brute-force entry fragger on T side, and he was even moved to spots like B Anchor on Mirage. 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).
Teammates
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. «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.»
- 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.
- «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.»
- «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.
- 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.
- The coronavirus pandemic then allowed flameZ to fully focus on Counter-Strike, and he continued to grind FPL-C while playing for Adaptation.
«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. «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.»
«Spinx, NertZ, and xertioN are very good friends of mine, but they are also very good players. The motivation was to succeed with another Israeli guy, reunite and speak my language, some Hebrew, in my free time. I think it’s very valuable for me to have a few people on the team that I am very connected to. The rifler also explained that the possibility of playing with other Israeli players was a plus in any team he joined. «We are all very good friends, you have to understand. We go once or two times a month to barbeque in Spinx’s house and we talk to his mum and father about everything, with his sister — it’s completely chill. We all know each other very well and we are good friends. 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.
«Around this time I felt like I met a lot of people that were key to keeping me intact with the game,» flameZ says. Some of that concern can be allayed by the fact that, despite nominally being a lurker in passive defaults, he was OG’s dedicated entry fragger. In OG, Nemanja «nexa» Isaković, Nikolaj «niko» Kristensen, and Adam «NEOFRAG» Zouhar were on map control in defaults but because those spread out defaults were so rare, it is unlikely flameZ will be too uncomfortable slotting into Vitality’s pack with apEX and Mathieu «ZywOo» Herbaut. The Israeli rifler appeared on HLTV Confirmed to discuss the last months with OG, his decision to not renew his contract, and his arrival in Vitality.
flameZ
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 brought to a grinding halt after they were cast out in the quarter-finals of ESL Pro League Season 20 by Eternal Fire. 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. «The Major was a big struggle with the ZywOo situation, but it showed me a lot of character in him,» flameZ says. «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.» 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. «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.»
flameZ on joining Vitality: «The motivation was to succeed with another Israeli guy»
Vitality then reached back-to-back grand finals at ESL Pro League Season 19 and IEM Dallas, but were stopped short of lifting the silverware by MOUZ and G2. ZywOo was back to his best in Malta and helped his team romp through the group stage undefeated with a 1.71 rating over six maps, with flameZ’s own efforts good for a 1.19 rating ahead of the playoffs. 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.
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. Vitality’s campaign in 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. That supremacy continued in the LANXESS Arena, where Vitality shut down SAW’s Cinderella run with a decisive 2-0 to reach the best-of-five grand final.
«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.» 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 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. «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.