flameZ: "ropz and ZywOo give you some rounds you should never get, you take them, say thank you, and move on"

The Israeli rifler was in good spirits after Vitality tallied their historic 24th consecutive win to make their fifth straight grand final.

Vitality are firmly amidst establishing an era, showing a level of dominance not seen since Astralis' dynasty, and have just made history by tallying their 24th win in a row to eclipse Liquid's 2019 roster for the second-longest winstreak in Counter-Strike history.

They got the job done with an emphatic 2-0 win over Spirit, who are now 0-3 against Vitality in 2025 and couldn't make good on a nearly month-long break after missing IEM Melbourne due to illness.

flameZ touched on that absence in a post-match interview with HLTV, admitting that while time away to practice can be good, it doesn't compare to the benefit of frequent officials.

"What's keeping us up right now is that experience from playoff into playoff into playoff, that we just have everything going on well with the communication and the energy, and I think this is impossible to replicate in practice," he said. "The group stage games, they're just never gonna offer you that."

The Israeli rifler also touched on Vitality's upcoming rematch of the IEM Melbourne grand final against Falcons, saying that Vitality will be able to play with less pressure now without the Grand Slam looming above them.

He also spoke to Vitality extending their winstreak and taking aim at NIP's 60-0 record, saying it isn't anyone's goal at the moment and that it would take a winstreak stretching somewhere between August and November to even get the job done.

"I think that's gonna be very tough," flameZ said. "If it happens, it happens, maybe you should give us like a Grand Slam for that, HLTV, huh? Like a $1 million dollar? Maybe we can close it out then."

You can watch the interview on YouTube, listen to the audio version on Spotify, or read the full transcript below:

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flameZ, the 24th win is yours and you broke the Liquid streak. From what I was talking to XTQZZZ and apEX, it really did mean something to you.

I think it was a thing that was in the back of our minds. We wanted it, but on the other hand, we knew that it shouldn't be the focus because that's extra pressure that you never want to put on yourself.

I'm just happy that we beat Spirit in that 24th game because, when we got that 21 winstreak, I was like, yeah, now we're gonna play Wildcard and teams that we can dominate more and it's gonna be easy, but it's nice to break another streak against a good team.

In such a fashion as well. It looked straightforward from the outside, did it feel like that in the game as well?

On Mirage CT it was flawless, dominant. On T side we were a bit slow on communication one round, but I still think we had good situations and we weren't playing bad, they just punished our mistakes.

Then on Nuke it felt a bit back and forth. I felt like on T side we could have won more rounds, but it was donk peeking Outside, getting a headshot on me, and it's just sometimes gonna happen like that.

But I think we really focused on just trying to close out the rounds that we could have closed, and it was tough against them because Spirit change pace in a second, they can go from passive to three people swinging out Heaven. This is something we were very cautious about, and it worked out for us.

ropz and ZywOo, they give you some rounds that you should never get, you take them and you say thank you, and you move on to the next round, but the next round is the match point. It was perfect.

Was it a bit of a surprise? When I was talking to XTQZZZ at the beginning of the tournament, he said that if he was to pick one team that was going to challenge you above the rest, it was going to be Spirit because they've had this time off and pay extra attention to you.

To be honest, I don't have the same opinion as XTQZZZ on this one because I was thinking that the big challenge was obviously coming from Falcons. I think with Spirit, it was like a two-way thing. They had so much time to practice that they could have been really prepared and set on many things nobody knew, but on the other hand, they didn't play an official for like one month. They played like two matches before us, or three, but I still think you need to get into those playoff matches.

What's keeping us up right now is that experience from playoff into playoff into playoff, that we just have everything going on well with the communication and the energy, and I think this is impossible to replicate in practice.

The group stage games, they're just never gonna offer you that. They fell on the short end of that, they could have been really prepared, but if the game goes like that and we win the key rounds, we win the clutches, apEX with USP killing three people and they have shit economy... If those things are gonna happen it's obviously going to give us an opportunity to play an easier match.

Does it fill you with confidence heading into tomorrow? You said you expected Falcons to be the big challenge.

I think Falcons are always going to be a threat with the new roster, even if they have a shit period. NiKo and m0NESY stepping up, TeSeS is playing insane, kyxsan is... Everybody in that team right now is playing really well, it could be a honeymoon but it could also be that they're really fucking good individuals, and that's gonna stick out for the rest of the year.

I think what's benefiting us tomorrow is that the Melbourne final was a lot of pressure on us and we saw that in how we played, and when we won that, it was a big relief to finish the Grand Slam and leave that behind you.

Right now, I think for tomorrow we have a little less pressure coming in, and coming from Melbourne and such a high note of the Grand Slam, the emotions are high, and getting into the finals of the next tournament, I think it's already a good achievement for us in this sense. But obviously we are greedy, we wanna win the final as well, but we're just gonna come and give our best.

Right now we have an opportunity to play without the pressure that we had in Melbourne, and that's something I'm very excited to see and the team is very relieved that we get into the zone of playing them again, such a clash of two good teams right now, but without the pressure that we had in the last official.

There's another streak potentially up the road... It's a long way ahead, I know, but is that something you have in the back of your head? You're not far off from being halfway there...

How much is it, 60? If we break that, it means we won like a Major and four more tournaments in a row or something. I think the thing that could have kept the streak going is if we canceled all the tournaments and we go into the CCTs and this kind of stuff, even though it might be harder. I don't think it's anybody's goal, nobody gives a fuck.

We wanted to break the Liquid record, but right now, going up to 60... I think people respect that, in this time and day, it's hard to do as many wins as we did, and in the past, no shaming NIP, but I didn't even watch this, I was too young, I don't know who the opponents were.

I think, for us, in some sense we are number one in our own belief, and with the NIP record, obviously we'd like to break it, but that's so far ahead winning until like August or November, just every match, and I think that's gonna be very tough. If it happens, it happens, maybe you should give us like a Grand Slam for that, HLTV, huh? Like a $1 million dollar? Maybe we can close it out then.