The 20-year-old then confessed that joining a tier-one team such as OG did not exactly match his assumptions. “I expected more to play whatever we can to get in form, and play those big tournaments like last Major was with Apeks, Monte, 9INE,” he explained. “They come in with like 500 or 200 officials in a year and come up against a team that has like 40 so, of course, they are going to be prepared. That’s the best practice you can wish for, to play officials at this amount.” “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.” “Two days before the RMR, nexa goes on leave and we take niko from the eternal bench and free agency,” the rifler said.
Why was flameZ the 7th best player of 2024?
“We were all on the same page, very hungry, very sharp, very friendly with each other,” he says. “It felt like we were a really solid family, and lifting the trophy is super nice obviously but the journey there was extremely unforgettable.” 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. “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.” “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.
- “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.
- 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.
- Head coach XTQZZZ later revealed that Spinx asked to explore his options after losing in Lisbon, but the matter was settled before the end of the break as the organization chose “not to make changes through Shanghai.”
- From his first event, you can see how good he is, how sharp he is, and it’s a good sign for Falcons, but obviously on the other side, they will feel bad.
- 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).
Flamez: «Magixx привносил в Spirit хорошее настроение. Он – душка, очень милый и искренний»
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. Despite fulfilling one of his dreams to play alongside NertZ, flameZ’s stint on Finest was short-lived.
Team Vitality
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. “But it required, as I said in many interviews, to be a close team and have good relationships. “Even though it is the only trophy that we won, it was an amazing experience and memory for me and all the people related to this experience have a dear place in my heart. No matter the circumstances that came later on.” Head coach XTQZZZ later revealed that Spinx asked to explore his options after losing in Lisbon, but the matter was settled before the end of the break as the organization chose “not to make changes through Shanghai.”
Game Settings
I knew MongolZ could very well beat them, but at least I expected Falcons to go from the lower bracket. I think it was a very big surprise for me to watch Falcons go out of the tournament so quick. I think in the Major we kinda felt stressed, there was pressure on us and we didn’t play our game, and this was a redeeming moment for us that we wanna show up and just play our CS against them. I think the key thing is that we get better game by game, but we’re also coming from a good bootcamp very confident in these games. Vitality grabbed a convincing win in their Austin Major rematch against The MongolZ to head into the IEM Cologne playoffs unscathed. 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 20-year-old appeared on HLTV Confirmed on Thursday and opened up about the issues with OG, his decision to leave, and why he chose Vitality.
- “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.”
- 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.
- “Two days before the RMR, nexa goes on leave and we take niko from the eternal bench and free agency,” the rifler said.
- “I think if you ask any player in Israel at that time, they all would have wanted to play with NertZ,” flameZ adds.
“It was very weird,” flameZ says of how winning two trophies at the end of the year set up expectations coming into 2024. “We just got Flamez mezii and had a staff change and it instantly clicked, we were all hyped and won these back-to-back BLASTs.
