Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan spoke to HLTV ahead of Vitality's campaign at ESL Pro League about getting the first big tournament win under his belt, nerves in big games, and his role.

Only two months following the signing of flameZ, Vitality have returned to their post-Major status as the world's No. 1 team and got the Israeli youngster the first Big Event win under his belt at last week's stacked Gamers8 tournament.

Having also succeeded in their debut at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups and made it to the semi-finals at IEM Cologne, flameZ has adapted well to Vitality in the short time they've had together, in spite of a busy schedule that has prevented them from being able to practice as well as they would have liked.

In an interview ahead of the team's next stop in Group A of the month-long ESL Pro League Season 18, flameZ spoke to HLTV about the reasons behind the success and how Vitality are making up for the lack of preparation, as well as why he has had an easier time to adapt to his role than he had expected.

You got your first big tournament win under your belt at Gamers8. Did you expect to be in this position so quickly after joining Vitality just a couple of months ago?

When I joined Vitality I expected at some point to lift some trophies. But when we talked about it, they just won the Paris Major, you might expect a little fall down. We saw it with FaZe and some other teams that, after they win the Major, their level decreases a little bit. That was the thing that the team sort of expected.

On the other hand, I didn't expect to integrate so fast to a level that we can win tournaments without practice, so I'm very happy with it. I didn't expect it to be so early on, but I really want to win a LAN with a lot of people in the crowd. Gamers8 was a good experience, but when you lift the trophy I wanna hear the crowd cheering. It felt like a studio LAN, sort of.

You touched on it there that you didn't have much time to practice. What do you think is behind that success then?

The staff team. Lars, zonic and MaT and Péché, the manager and the coaches and the psychologist, have done an amazing job in doing activities to make the group better, more open with each other. In Gamers8 we hit some headshots and some of the other teams were maybe a little bit tired from Cologne, like G2 and ENCE. We just came in, there was no practice, we were just having fun, we went to the pool every day, and then when we came to the late games I think it was just that we never gave up.

We talked a lot about it, in IEM Cologne we felt like we sort of gave up a little bit, and in Gamers8 that was the main thing to work on to be consistent and not give up on the games, even if it's close games. We showed up in the G2 game with a comeback and we were satisfied with that, and other than that it was just that we hit our shots, and Mathieu played good, and when ZywOo plays good you can beat any team in the world. That gave us the edge over G2 and ENCE, and other than that I think NAVI and MIBR weren't such competitive games.

You said when you joined Vitality that you're expecting to do whatever the team needs, not to be a star, but your numbers have stayed high and even though consistency isn't always there, you sometimes have these mega games, like against NAVI at Gamers8. How has your evolution been?

I still need to feel more comfortable in the semis and the finals. I felt like I was nervous in those games and that decreased my performance a little bit. I think my role, and we talked with Danny [zonic] a lot about it, it's less about the numbers, but it allows me to have numbers. I have good support and if we enter a site and I kill two, we don't need anybody, the round is over on the spot. The main focus is I manage to entry on T side and manage to hold my site on CT side.

The evolution has been going faster than I thought it would, because I didn't think I would have those pop-off games like NAVI or some of the other games where I managed to perform really well. I also had these games where I was really off, against G2 on Anubis, but you get to experience how it is when it's going rough for you and what you need to do next for another time if it goes that bad. I think mainly thanks to Dan and the coaches it feels very good to integrate into my role and the things that I wanna do.

I was entrying in OG already, but in a team with structure and you come in and they have their things already I thought it would be harder, but it isn't so hard when you have an IGL that used to be an entry and he knows how it feels, and he puts you in good situations. Not every round is a full strat round where you're gonna entry, so you have a lot of opportunities. And then CT sides are obviously another thing because you're anchoring a site, and if the enemy team doesn't come to your site you have a lot of opportunities to be in the 3v3, to close out the round. I wouldn't say my role is to have good stats, but I will say my role doesn't deny that. It allows me to still play and perform well, and I think if I manage to find consistency in my role I think we will be a very sharp team with Emil, Lotan, and Mathieu being so consistent. If we go in that direction and I allow myself to unlock my role I think we will be very competitive and very consistent in our level. That's the main focus right now.

At IEM Cologne and at Gamers8 we've seen ZywOo go for a lot more openings on the T side when he's on the AK. Why is that? Has his role changed or is it just down to his own initiative?

I think some of it is because we lacked practice, so we needed to take more initiative, the players individually, and take more responsibility. I think at Gamers8, because we missed zonic, people had to take more responsibility and more initiative in the game, so maybe you saw that more. And in IEM Cologne I think a lack of practice goes into that. If we don't have a lot of things to rely on as a team, solutions and stuff like that, you have to rely on the individuals.

Sometimes you hit a wall and [ZywOo] can break that wall alone, so he will get the support and the individual help if he needs, whatever it requires, and then he will go for it. In Gamers8 and IEM Cologne it was different cases, at Gamers8 we lacked the structure and there wasn't really any team to practice, so you didn't feel like the individual form was so good from the players, but this guy doesn't need 100 hours past 2 weeks. Dan helps him a lot in the game with telling him the opening, they lack something there, and then ZywOo goes for it if he feels like it. And usually he feels like it.

Let's move on to ESL Pro League and your group. You're obviously coming in as big favorites, now being No.1 and having won the last tournament. Who do you see as the biggest threats?

It has to be NIP or Astralis, I feel like. Astralis have shown good form in Cologne going to the semis. Astralis should be the biggest threat, but NIP are always there, and last time we played against them we lost to them and I wanna take revenge. But I would say that Astralis beats them in the current form, they had a lot of time to practice, also NIP had a lot of time, but I would say Astralis have the edge.

Date	Matches
ESL Pro League Season 18
30/08/2023	Vitality19:30 ORKS	Match

You're going straight into Pro League pretty quickly from Gamers8, so I imagine practice hasn't improved so much for now. If you're successful in the group you will play the playoffs in about a month's time. Do you have a roadmap for the next month for how you want to catch up with practice? How are you approaching this tournament?

The main focus is obviously to make playoffs, that's the standard, but top 1 is what we really want. To win three games in a row, I think, and then we go instantly to the playoffs. Because we had such a schedule, it went very fast and we didn't have time to practice from BLAST to Cologne to Gamers8, right now the main thing for Pro League is that we obviously need to perform and give our last push. Then we can have chill time at home, because we're gonna have three weeks I think, and then we're gonna have practice to rebuild a better system and to get to know each other better.

That's the main recipe we're gonna go for, we're gonna have Pro League, one week we're gonna play it, then a little bit of rest, go back into practice, fix all of the mistakes, build a better map pool, then come into playoffs stronger hopefully, and then focus on the future, Sydney I guess.