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.
Thunderpick World Championship 2025 Finals Set for Malta
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 grinder 50mm
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 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.
Flamez metalen grinder
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.
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.
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).
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.
flameZ
- This gold sticker was autographed by professional player Shahar Hai Shoshan playing for Vitality at the BLAST.tv Austin 2025 CS2 Major Championship.
- 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 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.
- “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.”
- 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.
- 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.
“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.
Vitality flameZ: “Great teams win ugly sometimes and this was an ugly win for us”
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.”
flameZ: “People will come for us because they know that we are the number one team”
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 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.
- The team was hamstrung early into their effort, however, when illness befell ZywOo and left Vitality with a deflated superstar when it mattered most.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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 Flamez within the team during those highly charged moments.
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.
