flameZ: "I feel the hunger to win a Major and have the badge on my HLTV page"

Although pleased to make Major playoffs for the first time, the Israeli rifler believes the team can reach a higher level than their current form.

After a hard-fought win over American side Complexity, Vitality have secured their place in the playoffs of PGL Major Copenhagen, bringing the team one step closer to defending their status as the reigning Major champions.

While Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire and company are pleased that they secured their place in the playoffs, their route to the top 8 was not without any stress. An opening loss to fellow playoff side Eternal Fire kicked off their Major campaign, with the reigning champs eventually securing a 2-1 record after close wins over The MongolZ and Imperial.

Not long after their hotly-contested victory over Complexity, Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan spoke with HLTV regarding the tough match, how the team has been viewing their performance in the Elimination Stage, and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut's role and how his recent illness has impacted it.

You're through to the Major playoffs. Stressful game, how did it feel?

Really stressful. I'm happy, my first time that I qualified for the Major playoffs and even being Legends at the Major, so I'm really happy with the performance and everyone in the team. The performance could be way better and we all know it as a team. All the fans know we can perform better, and today we were not brilliant in the team department.

I think everybody feels the same and everybody knows we have some days off now, we need to work really hard to gain back the level we can perform at because the Major playoffs are not going to be the same as the group stage.

apEX had a bit of a motivational speech at the start of that last map, he was telling you all to get a little hyped. I think you were down 2-6 and you started turning it around. Can you tell me about the slow starts and getting back into the game?

Unfortunately, on all the T sides we had really bad starts. We didn't wake up too late because it didn't go up to 8-4, 9-3, so when they got six rounds we woke up and then we had good situations. 5-7 every fucking half on T side, we were not happy with that.

Dan was screaming because we had really good situations but we just couldn't finish the rounds well. Little mistakes, died one by one, and just the same mistakes over and over. Also, the coach took pauses and he didn't want that to happen because we fell in the same trap again and again, he didn't want us to do that in a professional environment.

We just had a bad start and we couldn't pull it off, so the first buy round we would lose, maybe the second buy round even, but then we would wake up again and understand we need to play more relaxed together, grouped up. We just realized... not too late, but a little later than we could have done.

ZywOo is sick, Spinx mentioned it yesterday in the interview. It has been a little bit hard in that sense, apEX was also saying after you qualified that you gave them a chance without ZywOo and they still couldn't do it. Can you tell me about fighting for your chance to play in the Major playoffs without ZywOo being at 100%?

We have a great team. The individuals are good, we have a good IGL, we have a good staff team. Everybody is on point and sharp. Mathieu [ZywOo], he was sick, he is sick still, and it's not nice to have your best player sick. Mathieu is big in the game, he's not a player that just kills and you don't feel him. We know when Mathieu performs. Even when we are down he cheers us up and stuff like that, he is a really nice guy in that department and when you have him sick, it changes a lot of the dynamics, a lot of the relationships in just how we play.

We did our best to qualify, we could have done way better, but if we get him back and hopefully he feels good in the playoffs, then we take it because eventually we need him. He's a key success to this team, a key part in it. He is sick right now, but he is still ZywOo.

Vitality are the defending Major champions, but it is a different version of the game and not the same roster, you're here and we have mezii here. Can you tell me about going into this Major and trying to fight for another Major title for Vitality and for your first, whether that has added any pressure and what the mentality has been like for you?

For me, it's always a struggle because I feel like I play better when I care less, but you care a lot because this is the biggest tournament and Vitality as an organization, this is the main focus. We're happy with winning other tournaments, but if we get two Majors a year, I don't think we would be sad with it. We want those Majors and the main goal we have right now is to be as consistent as we can because we are still a new team in some sense.

There is still a long-term project we need to look at, even for Shanghai and stuff like that. There is pressure obviously, they all expect to win, we as players expect to win. We have the players to win the Major, they already won it before. I think the main difference is that we understand we are a new team because me and mezii joined, we have a new coach, new performance coach.

It's just a new team, so the core want to win it again, we want to win it for our first time, but I don't feel any pressure to win it again [for Vitality], I just feel the need to win it, the hunger to win one and have the badge on my HLTV page. Right now, we're just focused, we want to win every tournament whether it's the Major or not. Obviously the Major is the main focus, we will do our best, but there is pressure in every tournament.

It was a very strong performance from you to close the series, can you tell me about coming alive as you've gone deeper into the tournament and needing to step up with ZywOo being sick?

I had big up, big down, big up in this match. I was 6-17 on Vertigo, I think I finished like that on the second map. The first map I did feel good, we came back with the energy in the team. The second map, I didn't even feel like I had a bad time, just stuff didn't go my way, I didn't do stuff properly, and fair enough. When ZywOo doesn't play well, you can feel you have more space to do stuff in a sense. We talk about it a lot, we will need to take this responsibility at some point, especially now because we have a sick player.

I didn't have this in my brain, that I need to perform really crazy or something, I just said that I need to be there with communication, do my part with energy, but when you do that you will play good. It was just a matter of like... bro, I thank God for that. It was good from us in my opinion that everybody kept cheering up, every highlight, every clutch that didn't go our way, 'Nice try guys,' those things are key in maintaining our energy. That was well kept today and I feel like that also helped me perform.

Tell me about the voices on the team, because just from standing there, all of you were chipping in at different points. Even in the other games I've seen there has been a lot of talk, not just from apEX in the mid-round, other people are calling active moves on the map. Can you tell me how that's developed with mezii coming in and with ZywOo's re-signing where they said he was trying to be molded into an IGL and whatnot?

It's pretty hard for Mathieu because he's IGLing right now, full-time. We practiced as well, full IGL [Editor's note: flameZ is joking and asked to troll about this during the interview]. Dan is taking the mid-rounds and helping him sometimes, but the dynamics changed when Magisk left and we're still trying to figure out what is the best for us.

William [mezii], even though he didn't have the best of games individually, he determined a lot and we talked a lot in this game that we need to help Dan and Mathieu a lot. We have people sick in the team and need to talk as much as we can, give ideas, give plans, and that's what we tried to do. Every top 3-4 team, you will hear a lot of people chime in because they have to as players. They cannot just sit there and just play.

What about your voice on the team?

My voice is also up and down. It could affect me mentally if I don't perform individually, I could be talking less, but I work on it. When we have a lot of officials in a row, it's easier to work on it because you remember the progress and you have some level you stayed at in this regard.

For me, if I just work on communicating 24/7, even when I'm down, no matter the circumstances, it will make me more of a consistent individual in terms of performance. I'm not the teammate I would like to be yet, I still have to work on it, but my voice is getting better with the more officials we play.

Heading into the playoffs, you'll be in the Royal Arena. A couple of days off so hopefully some time for ZywOo to feel better. How do you feel about going to the stage and playing in the Royal Arena for the Major playoffs?

Last time we were in the Royal Arena [for BLAST Fall Final], we won it. We're excited to play, it's the Major, it's the big stage. We're possibly going to have a way better Mathieu. We're just really excited, we know that we need to work on a lot of stuff, but that's part of the game.

We'll just go with an open mind, we need to work a lot on these off days to keep the performance, and we need to also rest really well because we have people sick. Not only ZywOo, Spinx has been sick for a week or so, so it's just a matter of resting well, balancing out with not losing our CS level, and then we're good.