flameZ: “The pressure is way less, I think it just fits the style of playing pug”

OG have just completed a revamp of their roster after a disappointing start to 2022, Nemanja “⁠nexa⁠” Isaković‘s arrival not quite heralding the improved results it was billed to.

Facing Natus Vincere at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals was one of the first tests for OG and they passed with flying colours, besting the CIS giants 2-1, who themselves are in a transitionary period.

Fresh off the back of that win flameZ took some time with HLTV to talk about how they managed to make it happen, why he suffered towards the end of the previous roster, and Abdul “⁠degster⁠” Gasanov‘s monumental high-fives.

Congratulations, how does it feel to beat NAVI?

Obviously amazing (smiles). Winning a match is fun in general, we came here kinda with three stand-ins, two new players and degster, so it feels amazing.

I think we had a little less pressure because they were the favourites overall, and we had a stand-in and zero time to practice so it feels amazing, but we need to keep that level of performance this tournament.

So that lack of pressure made things a bit easier?

I guess it makes the game a little bit more pug-style, right? We have all the players required to give headshots, I think we just play that style and we can win a lot of these games, and obviously beating NAVI right now takes a lot of pressure off us. They are a massive force in this tournament.

The pressure is way less, same with the other tournament in Dubai, I think it just fits the style of playing pug, with the younger generation players, and against good teams it doesn’t matter you just play the same.

Is your hand sore, because degster really goes in for those high-fives?

Bro, I actually talked with him before the game… Okay, I will tell you how it works. When he slaps you really hard, the blood goes into the hand because it’s painful, so your hand is always awake you are ready to flick.

So it’s basically, you pay with pain, but you get more headshots.

So that’s why you got him in, not for AWPing, but for hand-slaps?

(laughs) yeah!

Bringing it back to the game, Inferno looked like it would be a competitive map after you put together a solid T-side, 7 rounds, but CT was a disaster. What happened?

I think we had a lot of solid preparation on them, and we had a good idea of how to come into the game, but when we came into the CT side we were kinda off and gave them more respect than they actually deserve. What we talked about we didn’t really fulfill.

The T-side was amazing preparation by the coaches, we just knew what they were gonna do. On CT I think they read us a bit more, the start on CT side I think s1mple killed two on banana twice, what can you do, right?

It was basically a few rounds off, but also the pistol rounds, we lost both pistols which took a toll on us.

Moving on to Mirage, what was the atmosphere in the team like when NAVI started to mount that comeback?

To be honest it was pretty worrying at the start, we just see the rounds starting to go by, but we still had a good plan in our brain. We just knew that we can win those rounds right, we have the individuals to give the headshots, if you give two headshots it’s done, which is how I think we won it in the end.

It was just a matter of time, I really felt comfortable, whatever we did I really believed in, I believed in nexa’s calls.

I know NEOFRAG after the game said something like “we can actually win!” (laughs), so he was surprised but it gave him confidence. You have to give it to him, he played insane, and F1KU is talking a lot and giving a lot of ideas, I think it’s important to be vocal even in high pressure situations, against one of the best teams in CS:GO.

It was a mixture of a lot of things, but you have to give NEOFRAG credit right, and degster, everyone did an amazing job in the end.

You just spoke about confidence, do you think that was key to winning Ancient, bringing that momentum from Mirage?

We came into Ancient knowing we still needed to win the game, but we were more happy. We talked a bit outside, we didn’t really prep Ancient, we just played how we know to play CS:GO.

It started with them playing way better than us, but they gave a lot of rounds in 3v3s and 2v2s, we won a lot of clutches and they gave us free rounds. I don’t know if they respected us maybe a bit more because we had a lot of rounds that were almost impossible but we somehow get them. Obviously the CT clutch I took gave a lot of options.

I think we kinda went from a bit down, we went up after the second map, and then it was like shock that they are playing really well now, but the few rounds that brought us into the game we took it and ran with it.

To ask a more general question about you personally, it seemed like you were one of the guys who suffered the most toward the end of the previous OG roster, particularly compared to your form when nexa first arrived. What happened there?

It was a mix of things, like outside of the game I was working really hard on stuff… I can talk about PGL and how it started falling down.

Basically I had too many issues outside of the game I felt like, and nothing really went well in the team. We didn’t play any officials, I felt like I didn’t know how to play CS:GO, and it was really an issue for me not playing so much, not getting that escapism.

I think the team itself, how we played, I think the potential was amazing, valde and niko are great players and niko is one of the best teammates I have had in CS:GO. It was just us failing to break this mental thing in the brain, we were actually really good. I felt amazing during the officials, the communication was up and the environment was really healthy for me, but I just couldn’t put up the numbers, I had doubts like I should switch mouse, these kind of things, it ruined it for me. Once one thing goes bad…

It’s like a spiral?

Yeah exactly, it was just a lot of issues outside the game that I had to figure out, and I’m still on it, and a lot of issues inside the game where we didn’t bring the same vibe as in officials. The only ones to blame are all the players for not playing more officials, because if we had that, I think we could have been great.

So nexa mentioned the grind in his interview, is this something the team has identified as important?

One of the last talks we had with the last OG is that we need to grind. I don’t care if we go on a 7-week boot camp and only play officials, Pinnacle Cups and all these things, I think they’re really important.

I don’t think winning them is important, it’s just to play them, get the rust out of the way and feel comfortable in officials. We came from Dubai, and everyone is ready to shoot. Tier-two teams feel so dangerous because they play 200 maps, and then you come against a tier-one team that plays only 30 maps, they will obviously do well.