FL4MUS: "I accept the fact that I'm not stable yet, that I cannot say I'll play like this tomorrow"

The Russian player admitted that he's still trying to find consistency in his game.

Virtus.pro came back from a map down to defeat FaZe 2-1 and move on to Group A's upper bracket semi-finals at BLAST Open Lisbon. After two highly contested maps, the Russian side ran away with the game on Dust2, where they stunned their opponents 13-0.

The victory comes as a significant boost to Virtus.pro's Austin Major qualification hopes as they are still in the running for a Stage 2 invite in a close race with 3DMAX and Astralis.

Read more

Fight for BLAST.tv Austin Major invites tenses up with three weeks to go

Timur "⁠FL4MUS⁠" Marev played a key role in the win with a team-high 1.62 rating on Ancient, where he had several big rounds, including an ace. He redeemed himself for what he believes was a poor showing on the first map. "On Anubis I just shat myself," he said.

"Just nerves, probably," he added. "Because we had a bad previous tournament. We've been training for a long time. We could not predict what was going to happen, especially me as a young player.

"My head was just chaotic."

Virtus.pro traveled to Copenhagen with the goal of bouncing back from a 9th-11th place finish at PGL Cluj-Napoca. The Swiss Stage elimination in Romania following losses to 3DMAX, paiN and MOUZ represented a setback for the team after the playoff run at IEM Katowice, where FL4MUS missed the arena matches because of visa issues.

"Everybody has been so tired," he said. "Also the situation with my visa in Katowice where I got kicked out of the tournament. Before that tournament, we had a three-week bootcamp, we had BLAST Bounty online, where we lost [in the second round].

"Then we went to Katowice, where we showed great results, and I got kicked out of the fucking tournament. Then, we instantly went from Katowice to Bucharest with no rest. And we're a new team. We don't have a lot of material to work with. And it's been really hard for the guys. Everybody has been super tired.

"In Bucharest, we'd wake up, prepare for the game, play the game, chill for one or two hours and then go back to work. And it went like that because we're tired. We're not robots."

FL4MUS joined Virtus.pro from GamerLegion in the off-season, filling one of the two vacancies on the roster following the double benching of Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali and David "⁠n0rb3r7⁠" Danielyan.

His series-high 1.46 rating against FaZe will certainly give him a confidence boost after some quiet showings in his first events with the team.

"I'm not happy with the way I've been playing, especially how I played in Cluj-Napoca," he said. "I hope it will be better in the future.  I will do as much as I can to be better because I was not happy. 

"I was sad about my performance in the previous tournaments, but I felt in this game and also the last game in Cluj-Napoca against MOUZ that I can show this level."

Next up for Virtus.pro is a qualifying series against Vitality, who are riding a huge wave of confidence after winning IEM Katowice and ESL Pro League 21. It is a team that FL4MUS has never defeated in his career, having lost three matches while with GamerLegion and two with Virtus.pro.

Date	Matches
BLAST Open Lisbon 2025
21/03/2025	Vitality 20:50 Virtus.pro	Match

"They are an insane team," FL4MUS said of Vitality. "They are playing on an insanely good level. They have really good confidence. If I play how I played on Anubis, it's going to be GG instantly. All five players need to be focused and need to show their highest level of CS.

"This game showed we can play really good CS, like our level of communication, our shooting, everything… We can beat them, but they're still super good and I've never defeated them. I hate giving any predictions. I just need to show good CS. If we all show good CS, we can win. If not, we're going to lose.

"I understand and accept the fact that I'm not stable yet, that I cannot say that I'll play like this tomorrow. Because I'm still not an experienced player. I don't have that confidence. I don't have the kind of material that other players have, especially in terms of mentality. But yeah, anything can happen."