flameZ shines in Vitality's statement win over NAVI

18-8-2023 00:54

The Israeli youngster put up a 1.62-rated performance to help Vitality secure a semi-finals appearance at Gamers8.

Vitality's individuals have been on fire

Vitality have advanced to the semi-finals at Gamers8 with a statement victory over Natus Vincere in the first quarter-final of the single elimination tournament. They move on to play the winner of the G2-Virtus.pro quarter-final on Saturday.

Date	Matches
Gamers8 2023
19/08/2023	Vitality 20:10 G2	Match

Their newest member, Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan, shone throughout the one-sided series. It began with a 16-2 beatdown on Mirage, where the 20-year-old and his compatriot, Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, racked up 30 kills combined in just the first 11 rounds on the way to a superb defensive half.

"Me and my Israeli friend, we played insane on Mirage. It just felt like no matter what we did we always knew how to react," Spinx said about his and his teammate's performance on the opening map in a post-match interview.

A more closely-contested affair on Nuke followed where nothing could separate the two teams until flameZ broke NAVI's economy in the 20th round with a well-timed flank and with the help of the silencer keeping his position unknown.

After this, he and Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif put up crucial solo triples in defense of the two bombsites to amass the momentum needed to close the series in relatively comfortable fashion at 16-11, 2-0.

The team has been playing at the tournament without Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen at their backs but have faced few issues so far, having previously picked up another landslide win in their opening Round of 16 match against MIBR.

"Of course we miss zonic, but I think MaT is doing a great job. We also said that all the players should give more, sometimes if we need a tactical timeout it's not only zonic's job, the players can do it as well. All the players are ready to step up," Spinx said on the topic.

Gamers8 2023Best of 3

Vitality

Matchpage

17th August 2023

Natus Vincere

Mirage

Nuke

Vitality	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan flameZ	48 - 19	+29	96.0	88.9%	1.62
Emil 'Magisk' Reif Magisk	36 - 24	+12	91.7	77.8%	1.36
Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi Spinx	34 - 27	+7	83.8	75.6%	1.24
Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut ZywOo	29 - 24	+5	67.7	77.8%	1.11
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire apEX	26 - 30	-4	72.9	66.7%	0.89

Natus Vincere	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev s1mple	27 - 32	-5	68.1	60.0%	0.91
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen Aleksib	28 - 35	-7	71.0	57.8%	0.91
Mihai 'iM' Ivan iM	25 - 35	-10	63.3	64.4%	0.87
Valeriy 'b1t' Vakhovskiy b1t	24 - 34	-10	52.8	57.8%	0.72
Justinas 'jL' Lekavicius jL	19 - 38	-19	60.6	48.9%	0.54

its joeover for Sasha , he needs to take a break and reinvent himself or he`s gonna fade into history like all the other great awpers.

2023-08-18 00:55

15 replies

sadly i kinda agree

2023-08-18 01:03

S1mple is gonna be fine; unlike GuardiaN.

2023-08-18 03:08

simple very stress, we can see at his face, he often make advantage and his teammates just die in other location. Navi need better IGL, even electronic better as IGL than aleksib. and Zywoo rating at mirage is 0.98, not because his performance bad, but the others play great. Vita in a good form

2023-08-18 04:02

8 replies

ah yes, the classic "we need a new igl" bs - they literally JUST signed him. give them a few more tournaments and I'm sure they will be at least somewhat deadly

2023-08-18 06:10

No They just need to slap him out of this behaviour. That form simple is having now doesnt even deserve the attitude he is giving

2023-08-18 11:45

5 replies

Im s1mples fan and i agree with this. From the start of this new team he is bitter, angry, stressed, toxic .. Its always the other dudes that have to manage and suck it up with s1mples way and never the other way around. They have to meet somewhere in the middle if they want this to work. Now if s1mple had extraordinary stats, if he was like Michael Jordan back in the days for example, someone could argue that he has a point to get mad since he is carrying and noone else doing their job .. But when you are bad yourself and at the same time you blame everyone else than yourself you break those guys morale beyond repair since they have to "suck it up, im S1mple " to the extreme for not saying " stfu, you suck too, you did alot of mistakes too ". This wont work like this forever, is humanly impossible to not crack up and say something back at some point. When this breakage goes to the point of no return, means that some of them might get really frustrated and talk back then you need to find new players ... that have to learn to suck it up and here we go again. This is a huge problem with S1mple. Why people think Electronic left ? They said because they got tired ? What do you think they got tired of ? Exactly ... The toxic environment, the blames, the yells, the ego etc... And the guy who is in the front of all this is no other than S1mple.

2023-08-18 14:48

4 replies

+1 I 100% agree with you

2023-08-18 15:42

+1 S1mple is in a downward spiral

2023-08-18 18:43

He has been bitter since boobl4 left

2023-08-18 23:59

1 reply

I dont know why but he has NAVIs approval for being toxic to the point that he stating himself he is toxic in interviews like nothing is wrong about it. That shows that is a pretty normal situation for NAVI with S1mple and noone from the organization is willing to step in and change this for good. All that because they dont want to upset S1mple obviously so they let him act as he wants and look the other way. NAVI as an organization has lot of responsibility for S1mples behavor also.

2023-08-19 01:52

I don't think that that teammates is the only problem. Not the main at least. Remember old good days with zeus, flamie roster: s1mple was shining on each map despite his teammates performance. Nowadays his performance even at the top not near as back then

2023-08-19 02:15

I think it is caused by his champion mentality. Losing makes him more mad than winning makes him happy. That is not good for long term things and after he got the taste of domination in 2021 now nothing else than 1st place can satisfy him.

2023-08-18 07:25

3 replies

Stop calling immaturity and fear of losing "champion mentality" Ty "after he got rest of domination..." he was always like this, since flipside times, just stop

2023-08-18 08:56

2 replies

*taste, not rest

2023-08-18 09:17

Immature behavior is venting the wrong emotions towards his teammates but I see nothing wrong with "fear of losing" or being focused only on winning.

2023-08-18 12:26

Yes

So EZ for the wOo

Shut up machine

2023-08-18 06:52

the best in the game

2023-08-18 07:14

IS IT ZYWOOOO? THE BEST IN THE GAME?

2023-08-18 10:00

MY GOD 😱😱HE'S A BYWOO 🤖🤖THE BEST IN THE GAME 🐐🐐!!!

2023-08-18 12:40

Dupreeh fans in the mud ...

2023-08-18 00:56

dupreeh had fans? lol

2023-08-18 14:44

ez smurf

2023-08-18 00:57

Best transfer.

2023-08-18 01:00

ZywOo drops a 1.11 rating and that's considered a "bad game". GG to Vitality - match was honestly disappointing but the expected result.

Unfortunately.... yea what do you think is wrong with this NAVI squad or is it simply just lack of "time"?

2023-08-18 01:17

7 replies

Too dysfunctional. It's even like Vitality played all that well, they just got completely outmatched - well, FlameZ went nuclear, that definitely helped - I more mean like Vitality were just a well-oiled machine Na'Vi looked completely lost in that first game. The second map was a little bit more competitive but Vitality were never really in danger of losing the map, I feel.

2023-08-18 01:21

6 replies

Pretty much took my thoughts exactly... always a joy talking to you mate :)

2023-08-18 02:30

Likewise. ^^ Great to see you on HLTV again. :D

2023-08-18 10:13

agreed. at least iM's roles are starting to look a bit more solid (ignoring the fragging, but he seemed more lost at Cologne). Plus they didn't completely bomb out of this tournament. I would be more worried if they lost to furia in that first game. blade and aleski still need to figure out a set game plan though because honestly their system still looks a lot like how the old roster played

2023-08-18 06:16

I think iM is starting to feel more comfortable now but I would still that they need more time to work on communication. It took Vitality ages to finally mould, it will be the same with Na'Vi.

2023-08-18 13:21

I feel like if they didn't lose that 5v3 they could have won the map, that broke them so hard that after it, they really just gave up

2023-08-18 11:28

Yeah, I would say that kind of cemented things. Even before then, Na'Vi looked look and dejected bar jL and iM, who were in good spirits.

2023-08-18 13:19

Vitality with flamez formula- stomp every team until you play a really good one then lose narrowly

2023-08-18 01:02

Vitality: replaces player after winning major based on pure fragging potential for the future Navi: replaces top tier players based on 1 major result and good vibes

2023-08-18 01:04

lol

2023-08-18 02:15

“Good vibes”

2023-08-18 02:17

Everyone in Navi is smiling and fist bumping until they hop in the server

2023-08-18 02:31

Up until s1mple gets mad in the first round

2023-08-18 03:47

Bro says replaced as if elec and perfecto didn't leave on their own

2023-08-18 10:01

And they probably left because of the malding awper. Simple is gone for good, never coming back. He malds harder now than ever before

2023-08-18 11:48

tbf I've rarely seen s1mple mald in the old navi squad. Either it's a selective memory or he was calmer when the squad was objectively better.

2023-08-18 13:52

Obviously selective memory. Bro was raging hard on sdy and npl

2023-08-18 20:31

Expected when you pitch Vitality against a tier 2 team

2023-08-18 01:06

flamEZ! <3

jL is not fitting into this lineup well, he’s the new npl

2023-08-18 01:35

he's too good for this lineup

2023-08-18 10:06

The GOAT vs toxic crybaby s0mple Expected.

2023-08-18 02:08

Can't wait for the G2 rematch. Vitality looking really scary!

2023-08-18 02:14

feels bad for s1mple.. such a bad lineup

2023-08-18 03:21

I feel bad for the lineup.. such a bad s0mple

2023-08-18 06:34

no way you think the lineup is the problem...

2023-08-18 09:26

Flamez god

2023-08-18 06:29

-jl totalus botas

2023-08-18 06:43

EL Z!!!!!!!!

2023-08-18 06:58

Flamez was ok but he needs to pick it up if he wants to keep his seat.

2023-08-18 07:24

Kick simple/b1t and take some t5 players 🤣

2023-08-18 07:34

Just rebrand to new low tier team. IVAN5!

2023-08-18 07:40

I think Navi is a very good team…for a tier 2-3 team.

2023-08-18 07:38

Aleksib top fragging and top ADR is BADDDD.

2023-08-18 07:39

zywoo didnt even have to perform to beat this new NAVI sadge

2023-08-18 09:07

Aleksib top fragging and adr in team with simple, bit and iM. Oh dear...

2023-08-18 09:20

Zywoo average performance still enough to destroy washed up s0mple and goat paycheck stealing igl

2023-08-18 09:55

this game was a new low for Saudi-Israeli relations

2023-08-18 10:25

poor Aleksib, still dont have 4 good players on hes lineup. Its a damn shame he cant carry hes team to victory all alone. I dont know what to think about iM and jL. 7/10 games they are dogshit but sometimes are actually really good. Maybe -iM and keep jL as mascot and morale booster

2023-08-18 10:57

flamez lifegame

2023-08-18 11:10

Some glory days coming up for Vitality indeed, guess only G2 who can stop them at the moment maybe a bit ENCE aswell, NAVI however are done once they went international, nothing surprising tbh that was a big risk from their part they will have to accept and deal with the consequences and a malding s1mple wouldn't even help them get better even a little lol

2023-08-18 11:32

S0mple needs to be replaced by Acor and we fix the issue

2023-08-18 11:38

Bro farming stat on scared bots aleksib + jL + iM + b1t, but nice performance

2023-08-18 12:29

switching to international can only work with skill monters players as you have to compensate for the tier 3 comunication vitality was "trash " for 1 year.. and their com is still tier 2 after all that time...

2023-08-18 12:55

flameZ showing aleksi what a decent IGL can do with him lol

2023-08-18 13:05

jLegend

2023-08-18 14:16

for once zywoo in spec mode chilling watching a teammate carry

2023-08-18 20:35

s1mple & b1t still got it which we saw vs FURIA on Ancient, but s1mples performance on mirage vs FURIA was laughable. It's like he was just trying to throw as many rounds as possible. I don't think this team will recover from this (because of s1mples nature). Picking AleksiB up when hes failed for so many teams and honestly, his individual level is very bad and on mirage he was gifting so many rounds to FURIA In the beginning with some really questionable plays like straight up rushing out mid with no flash or support to easily get picked by FalleNs AWP over and over. It's straight up gold nova matchmaking stuff. Very questionable choice of player. jL, iM and b1t at least got potential IMO to do great things.

2023-08-19 11:15

also wtf was AleksiB thinking with that CT-smoke on 2nd pistol round (NaVi CT). Practically smoking off the site getting picked off 1 by 1 through the smoke gifting a free bomb plant for Vitality. This guy has to recover in some lower tier team to get his confidence back from all these years because wtf is this shit

2023-08-19 11:43

When ZywOo drops a 1.11 rating and that's considered a bad game, thats crazy. WP to Vitality - match was honestly disappointing but the expected result.

2023-08-20 21:11