flameZ: "I wanna beat donk in a grand final"

Vitality's opener wants to see ZywOo and donk face off in a rematch.

Vitality ended a six-year curse in Katowice after beating The MongolZ 2-0 in the semi-finals, winning a playoff match in Spodek for the first time to set up a best-of-five title challenge against reigning champions Spirit.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2025
09/02/2025	Vitality 17:00 Spirit	Match

It'll be the first time Vitality takes on Spirit with a full-strength roster since BLAST Spring Final in June last year, and their first shot at a title with Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool.

"It would be really nice to play a grand final against Spirit," Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan told HLTV in an interview conducted before Spirit's win over Natus Vincere. "The last time we played them I think we had JACKZ [as a stand-in] and we got bullied by them."

It was the first time in the Polish arena for flameZ, who has been in excellent form in Katowice and is Vitality's second-highest-rated player (1.24) after Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut (1.35).

The Israeli rifler joked about bouncing back from his slow start to the year in BLAST Bounty, saying he "is not an onliner," and added that while he is still adjusting to a few new roles after ropz's arrival, the Estonian makes the transition much easier.

"It's quite easy to adapt to a new position when the guy who takes the other position communicates what he's gonna do, he has a lot of aggressive plays, you can play a lot on him and not just on yourself," flameZ says. "He fills those roles quite easily for the other people."

flameZ, straight to the grand final after a pretty one-sided game against The MongolZ. It seems like it's a comfortable matchup for you guys.

Yeah, I think they play very duelly, sort of like FaZe, they take a lot of duels and we like to play against this style. One more thing is that our prep was really good for this one and we're really comfortable with the maps and everything, so it was mainly the prep that made us feel really confident coming in, and also we have the confidence that we are the better team, the more experienced team, and we just need to show up.

Stage games feel different, my first time in Spodek so a lot of excitement regarding that, so we also get hyped, so it's really easy to do that.

You especially get hyped under the lights. As you say, the first time for you in Spodek, what do you think about this arena?

Actually, I always thought Spodek and Cologne would be sort of the same size of arena, but now I realize how big Cologne is. But Spodek is also quite huge, it's very loud, the fans get quite loud. Before the game, when O.J. asked, 'Who's gonna win,' it sounded so loud, I got chills all through my body.

I'm very happy to be in this moment, when you play and look at the crowd and you see the arena dark and everyone picks up their cellphone and turns on their flashlights, it looks so good. It looks like you're just in a dream and you see the stars. For me, it's emotion, I feel good about it, I feel like that gives me the passion and the motivation to push through and scream in game.

I'm very glad this was the game that welcomed us into Spodek. Also, Vitality, we never got through the quarter-finals, so this one feels very special for us, very unique.

Tomorrow, there's a possible matchup that is very comfortable for you out of the two possibilities — NAVI's never beaten you. Is that the one you'd be looking forward to more, or do you welcome the possible challenge of Spirit?

To be honest, I was thinking about it right now. We had a team talk just after we won, and I was thinking to myself, NAVI are always good, so we can never say we're gonna beat them for sure, but I think it would be really nice to play a grand final against Spirit.

The last time we played them I think we had JACKZ and we got bullied by them, but I'm really excited, donk looks like he's in form, and I really want a ZywOo-donk matchup again. That's the final I want.

We played against NAVI and it was huge, but I'd like to play as many teams as I can in a grand final just to have it. With NAVI it was great in Cologne and it's gonna be great here because they have a lot of people cheering for them, but with Spirit, there's something there, I wanna beat donk in a grand final.

Back at the HLTV Awards, you said the role changes weren't going to turn out exactly as we would have expected. A couple of changes happened for you, you moved on Anubis and Nuke from those anchor positions. How do you feel in your new positions?

I think on Anubis it was quite tough at the beginning, but me and mezii worked a lot to just get things going on and some ideas. It's tough because you don't have a lot of time to — sometimes the best practice is in officials, and we didn't have so many officials, and then we got Eternal Fire instantly on our head, and the next one was FaZe.

One thing that we need is this experience on those maps and some of the changes that have been made. Nuke, I'm very comfortable with, and some of the other changes that mezii and ropz switched also fit the team really well.

ropz is also an easy player to play with. He proposes a lot of ideas, he gives a lot of knowledge and effort in his position. It's quite easy to adapt to a new position when the guy who takes the other position communicates what he's gonna do, he has a lot of aggressive plays, you can play a lot on him and not just on yourself. He fills those roles quite easily for the other people.

At the beginning of the year, you had a bit of a slow start, but you've been on fire in Katowice. What was behind that?

I'm not an onliner (laughs). It was online, it was quite tough, and I didn't play so well individually. I didn't kill a lot, but I was talking a lot in the game in those matches, so I didn't feel so bad regarding the performance. But there is a different excitement when it comes to LAN, and I feel like we've all been grinding, and I hit good form.

Today against The MongolZ on Mirage, I was feeling this slow start and I wasn't feeling like it was due to pressure, I was feeling like my hands were sloppy and I couldn't properly aim, so this is something I'm coming for tomorrow, I'm gonna try to push instantly from the beginning.

There are a lot of excuses, cold hands, Poland (chuckles). But, for me, right now it's been going well, but I'm also a player that I need the team to help me in some sense. I'm always gonna entry, I'm always gonna sacrifice, I'm gonna try to do one or two jumpshots in a game.

This is something I'm allowed to do when I have great teammates behind me to trade, and that's getting me into those games. So far in this tournament I've been fortunate to have those situations, I'm glad.