FL4MUS: "Even though I played the same positions in GamerLegion, my moves were completely wrong"

"The difference is in experience," FL4MUS states when comparing his play to that of his new teammates.

After finding themselves outclassed by paiN in their opener at IEM Katowice Play-in, Virtus.pro have bounced back in style by comfortably demolishing SAW to advance their campaign.

Results have been mixed thus far for Virtus.pro as they begin a new era without long-time captain Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali, with recent signing Timur "⁠FL4MUS⁠" Marev stating that he is "getting something new" every day as he adjusts to his new home. "Sometimes my head is about to blow up," he admits. "But there is no other way for me to be on the same level as them."

After helping his team take down SAW, the 20-year-old rifler spent some time with HLTV to talk in-depth about leaving GamerLegion for Virtus.pro, how a desire to play with Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov influenced the transfer, and adapting to his new team.

Tell me about how you made the decision to move on from GamerLegion to join Virtus.pro. What was the thought process behind the move?

There are some reasons why I wanted to play in Virtus.pro beside the game. I also wanted to play under electroNic because I really trust in his in-game leadership abilities.

What were those reasons? Is it also speaking Russian?

It's not about the language, more about from where I live... There's a lot of stuff, but I don't wanna get into that.

Was it difficult to leave GamerLegion behind after the run at the Shanghai Major?

Of course it was, they're all my friends. I would say the decision, it wasn't hard, but the feelings behind this decision, I was upset. I was sad.

From an in-game perspective, what were the biggest selling points for you about joining Virtus.pro? You already mentioned electroNic, what else?

There are two more Major champions in this team, and, before, electroNic wasn't the in-game leader and I just wanted to play with him. It's the main reason, look at the players who are playing, their game-reading abilities, how they see the game, how fast they react, it's all insane.

Every day I'm getting something new. We started training from January 3 and we've been on a big grind, and every day I'm getting too much information -- I would even say too much because sometimes it is too much (laughs). Sometimes my head is about to blow up, but there is no other way for me to be on the same level as them.

What do you think that's down to? Is it because you had a lot more freedom in GamerLegion? What are the biggest differences for you in joining a team with so much more experience?

It's about the style of the team. It was a fully different style of the team than GamerLegion. We've been playing different rounds, different systems, different defaults. There were some things kinda the same, but other reactions, for example, how we react on the map and some of those things. Those are the biggest differences.

The difference is in experience. They already know what to do right, and they can predict a lot inside the game of what they're gonna do. For example, what happened today in the game, we knew what they were doing an insane amount of times, they were coming at us where we were always [stacking] three, or we were behind. One time they caught us off-guard because I fucked up (laughs). And that's what I'm saying, if it comes to all of my teammates, it wouldn't happen like that in my opinion.

On the topic of electroNic - from the outside there are mixed impressions of him as an in-game leader. He's gone back and forth and the community response is quite mixed about that. After having played with him for some time, do you think he gets a bad reputation?

It doesn't matter what the others are saying. I'm inside of the team and nobody inside the team is complaining about him being an in-game leader. When we are losing games, it's not about him being an in-game leader, it's about a team. It's about individual mistakes, all of those things, it's not about him as an in-game leader. The community just needs a guy to blame. And they choose him. It's their choice, but I believe that we will prove.

How good of a fit has it been for you? You said there was a lot of getting to grips with how this team works stylistically - how much freedom are you getting to do what you want as opposed to what the style of the team is?

I don't have things that I want to do in-game. It's sport. You're not playing for fun, it's not matchmaking, it's a professional game. In this game, to win a game you need to do the right things. There is no 'you want,' 'you don't'. There is optimal and not optimal. You cannot always be 100% sure. You need to play the most optimal.

On T side you slotted into a lot of the aggressive roles. But on CT side we wouldn't have attributed such an aggressive player as you some of the roles you're playing, Pit on Inferno, on Dust2 you were moved to a more passive position than at the beginning. How is difficult is it for you as an aggressive player to get used to some of these positions?

I would just say I'm not a really aggressive player as everybody thinks. I'm ready to take chances and I'm ready to risk. If I don't need to risk, I won't. They put me on Long [Dust2] because [of] my experience. My rotations were bad, and all of that comes with experience, which I don't have.

Even though I'd been playing in GamerLegion the same positions, I understand that my moves were completely wrong. It's not all just words, it's all confirmed by the praccs, by the officials, and it wasn't random. And, for example, on Inferno, I chose it. On Inferno I even have less experience and it's more comfortable for me to just play Apps because I'm feeling more comfortable getting into off-angles, playing tricky. I have freedom.

This game right now doesn't have bad and good positions. It's about the system and it's about winning. If you want to win, you need to do it.

It's been mixed results from you guys. The loss to Vitality online, now in Katowice you also got off to a bad start against paiN, and now taking a convincing win against SAW. How have things been going so far?

Against paiN, what happened yesterday -- it happens. On Mirage we lost a lot of the close rounds, a lot of the clutches, and they were all key rounds, we really needed them and we lost them. On Dust2, in my opinion it was too much luck from them, not gonna lie. The amount of times where they kill... I will just say one example, one time, one guy went out mid, he was shooting at our guy close Middle, and he killed another guy through the doors. Another guy, I killed two on long, I'm jumping, snow is shooting at my legs and kills ICY, who was just peeking. He was shooting at my legs. And this wasn't the only thing.

I don't want to say it was luck because we didn't play well, we lost too many key rounds on Mirage and it kinda shook us, and because of that we started thinking 'maybe we're doing something wrong.' We did an analysis and we saw that what we were doing was right, it's about ends of rounds and our decisions in micro-moments. Today we proved that we are actually right. We were doing everything right. Today it was not many of those mistakes, and you see what is the result.

Do you think you can continue this kind of form? You're gonna go up against higher-ranked teams than SAW, are you confident that you have found a recipe to start having success?

It's always been, it never left. It doesn't matter against who you play, if you wanna win you need to beat every team. It doesn't matter if it's NAVI, Vitality or SAW. You can't lose to anyone. We'll try our best and we will see.