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. 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. 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). His only negative map (0.90 rating) came in the decider against G2 in the semi-final, which Vitality lost in overtime to bow out of the Spring Final in 3-4th place. 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).
“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.
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.”
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.
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 Flamez 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.
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.
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.
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.