flamie: "I want to come back and I think that I still have something to show"

The Russian rifler has taken a mentoring role in his new team and awaits CS2 eagerly.

Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev needs no introduction with 15 Big Event medals and two HLTV top 20 Player of the Year awards in his career. Despite this impressive resume, his last title came in 2020 and his final top-20 appearance dates even earlier, 2016.

The 26-year-old was removed from Natus Vincere in 2021 after more than six years in the team and stood in for their youth squad at the WePlay Academy League shortly after. He then made the jump over to 1win, but his stint in the Aleksei "⁠NickelBack⁠" Trofimov-led squad also ended abruptly. The Russian rifler then drifted into relative obscurity.

flamie has joined a new team playing under the CYBERSHOKE banner, and led the group of youngsters to their first LAN at the PARI Dunav Party in Belgrade, Serbia. The Russian rifler spoke with HLTV after their opening loss to Virtus.pro, which was followed by elimination at the hands of 9 Pandas later in the evening.

"I got an invitation from [Russian-speaking YouTuber] Shoke. CYBERSHOKE is his team," flamie told HLTV in Belgrade. "He explained to me that he wants me to be part of the team and help young players to grow faster and to maybe learn something."

While the 26-year-old is helping the team with their first LAN appearance, the event also marks his return to in-person tournaments, His last attendance came at the IEM Rio Major RMR with 1win. "I think it's great to play on LAN. Of course, it's not like an international LAN, it's more like a regional one, a Russian LAN."

Like many Russian players since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, flamie has become acquainted with the Serbian capital, a positive when talking about attending the PARI Dunav Party. "It feels great," he says, "I was living here for like nine months, so I'm kind of adapted to the city and I like it."

Several experienced players have taken on the role of IGL, but flamie has gone in a different direction by becoming more of a mentor in other ways. "I'm playing support roles," flamie explains." Personally, I think that I can give some advice to them because I have played a lot of LANs, and I have a lot of experience. I think that I can help more outside of the game and in the game I can help with what we need to work on in general terms."

When asked whether he is in this project for the long term, flamie said he doesn't immediately expect results and that he is prepared to give his teammates time. "Maybe, for now, it's not the best team, but still we have a lot of young players. If we work a lot and believe in ourselves, I think we can achieve something great. I believe in these guys, and I hope that we will show better results in future games."

"But I don't know exactly how long it will take to show some results. Of course, we're trying to make some structure and stuff like this, so it's probably going to take about a year for all of the maps. For now, I think it's a long-term project. Not one or two months, it's probably five and more."

Despite losing their PARI Dunav Party opener to Virtus.pro, flamie was full of praise for his teammates and generally seemed in a good mood. "It will take time because for now, it's so much work to do and so much stuff to discuss.

"We don't have anything yet, we only play like a mix and not really like a team. In the future, I think the guys are really, like I said, hot prospects because they're 17 and some of them started to play CS like two years ago. So in two years," flamie said laughingly, "they're already playing with me."

"I think that's something you can see because not every player can grow so fast in two years, like they are. And I hope that we will show some results sooner than five months, but if not, I'm okay with that because it's still a young team, as I said."

flamie then gave an honest answer when asked about what it's like to be away from the top flight. "No, of course I'm not happy to be in tier three," he began "I want to come back and I think that I still have something to show, but we will see in CS2 probably.

"You know, the young guys, it's maybe even better to have some young guys in the team for CS2," flamie once again said with a laugh, "because they will adapt faster and maybe they will teach me something."

While stating his wish to return to big events in the future, he added that he aims to do so with his current team. "If nothing extraordinary happens, I think that I'm going to play with this team, come back in CS2, and hope to have some fresh breath from this new game.

"I think that my experience will help in CS2. And also for myself, I think that shooting in CS2 is maybe a little bit easier because it's a different hitbox. But still, it will be a different game with a lot of new updates and it's always nice to start a new chapter with a new team."