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. 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. “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.”
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. FlameZ took part in a few small tournaments early on, but soon gained motivation to step out of his older brother’s shadow after he was taunted online. Join our Discord community to discuss CS2 utility strategies, share experiences, and get the latest updates with fellow players. 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. “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.”
“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. Known for his aggressive play, pinpoint aim, and sharp utility usage, he helped Vitality win IEM Cologne 2024 and multiple BLAST events.
- 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.
- He is no superstar statistically speaking, but he has a selflessness that rarely comes with his type of talent.
- 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.
- 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.
- FlameZ chose to join Vitality and reunite with Lotan “Spinx” Giladi for the first time since 2020, when they both played in the same FPL/FPL-C circles and coincided in mix-teams such as Tikitakan and Elites.
- ApEX plays a lot of rotator positions to help his calling, but he has shown a willingness to lose them if the timing is right.
flameZ on joining Vitality: “The motivation was to succeed with another Israeli guy”
Days after being crowned the 2023 Team of the Year at the HLTV Awards Show, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire’s troops made their way to Copenhagen for BLAST Spring Groups and locked in a spot at the Spring Final. 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 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. “I think if you ask any player in Israel at that time, they all would have wanted to play with NertZ,” flameZ adds.
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. 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 tallied a team-leading 1.40 series rating in exDT’s semi-final win over ShapeShift, but finished as runners-up to Aequus. ApEX plays a lot of rotator positions to help his calling, but he has shown a willingness to lose them if the timing is right. Dupreeh has left behind a few rotator spots like A Short on Inferno, and apEX may well move back to B on Mirage to give flameZ Connector.
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. 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. It must be something that he enjoys, and that can only have made him an appealing prospect for Vitality to pick up. A lot of aggressive players in the current meta are solo space takers, using their timings to find kills for themselves rather than for their teammates. Whether that is personal preference or OG’s style doesn’t really matter; either prove that he is willing to sacrifice himself for the win. “Then 2023 we started out with Katowice and BLAST. It was very close to getting playoffs at Katowice and with BLAST we were very close to qualifying for Washington,” he began.
- FlameZ was back to his best at the BLAST Spring Final with a 1.16 rating across 12 maps, but it was only good enough for a 3-4th finish.
- “I talked to the coach and heard his plans, but told him that there are some offers that if they are going to come, I will go play for them. I told them beforehand in Dallas that if these offers come I will explore them deeper than usual.”
- 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.
- 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).
- FlameZ has also got more of that unbridled aggression apEX loves in JACKZ, a natural inclination to risk-taking that dupreeh had to manually unlock.
- “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.
In terms of fitting within the existing team structure, flameZ seemed confident about his ability to fill the roles left by Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen. “On T side I fit because Vitality need a guy that runs and doesn’t give a single fuck and sacrifices, and I think I fit that background pretty well,” he said. “I feel comfortable playing aggressively and giving my teammates the feeling that someone is sacrificing for them, especially in a team with someone that can close any 1vs4 round or 1vs3, or 1vs2 like ZywOo. FlameZ chose to join Vitality and reunite with Lotan “Spinx” Giladi for the first time since 2020, when they both played in the same FPL/FPL-C circles and coincided in mix-teams such as Tikitakan and Elites. The move was one of the highest-profile transfers in the off-season, teaming up the Israeli rifler not only with his countryman, but also Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut.
How to Apply “flameZ” Crosshair
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apEX
By the time 2023 rolled around, flameZ was on the wishlist of many organizations and his contract with OG was running out. 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. “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.”
Why was flameZ the 7th best player of 2024?
There may be teething issues, but flameZ should be more than comfortable in his role even 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.
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.
flameZ
“In the end, I think everybody felt bad, a lot of players felt burnout and it just wasn’t fun to play as it was before in the other part of the year in 2022. Overall in 2023, the last part of OG was not full of good memories for me.” “Overall, in 2022, when degster came in and we had NEOFRAG and F1KU, I think we made the semi-finals in all the BLAST tournaments like the Spring Final and World Final. 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.