fl0m on Vitality: “We’re all just waiting for the sleeping giant that we all know is there”

Erik “fl0m” Flom is one of the biggest streamers in North America, currently attending and co-streaming the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025. We had the chance to sit down with fl0m with Monster Energy ahead of the Major Semi-Finals, and caught up with him about his own event, the current state of NA CS, and the teams he wants to see conquer the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025.

Daniel Morris: fl0m, how is Budapest treating you so far and how was the travel from the US?

Erik “fl0m” Flom: It’s good, I flew out of Vegas Monday, I got here Tuesday, and then kind of toured the city on Wednesday. Went to Castle Hill, checked out Parliament, all that stuff. Ate a bunch of food because that’s what I like to do. Yeah, I mean, it’s been a good time.

Daniel: What was the last event you were at in Europe?

fl0m: Cologne… 2024?

Daniel: So it’s been a couple of years.

fl0m: Yeah!

Daniel: Well, we’re obviously a few days into the Playoffs [of Budapest] so far, and we’ve seen all the teams play. So which team would you say has sort of impressed you the most so far?

fl0m: Are we talking even knowing the results of yesterday, or are we talking before the Playoffs?

Daniel: Yeah, just of the four teams left.

fl0m: NAVI impressed me, but w0nderful is kind of the most… I mean, both the AWPers are why I’m impressed, broky and w0nderful. w0nderful is doing it in all the stages, so I’m just impressed that he’s maintaining that. And then broky is finally doing what we know broky was capable of this entire time. Now we just got to wait and see if he can keep it up. Apparently, he was sick the first few stages, which I found out literally yesterday doing an interview with Banks, so he was actually ill, so that maybe that’s why. So maybe more good things to come from broky, which would be really fun. I mean, seeing FaZe do well is always good for the fans. You know, they were literally the home crowd yesterday versus torzsi, which was insane to me.

Daniel: That surprised me the most, I think, just being in there, they were chanting “Send Them Home” to torzsi. 

fl0m: But it’s because the Major is an international crowd. Yes, we’re in Budapest, but this isn’t the Budapest. Like, this isn’t an event that was smaller and regional for them. This is the Major where, you know, I’m doing meet and greets, and I would say 1 in 20 are actually local. And then everybody else is flying in from other parts of… mostly Europe.

Daniel: Not necessarily just talking about the Playoffs here. What team would you say has surprised you in a more negative way the most?

fl0m: I mean, Liquid. Yeah. Liquid was brutal. I wasn’t necessarily expecting them to do, like, for sure, be in Playoffs. But their form just looks so bad, you know? Like, you can lose, but then there’s the fashion in which you lose. And they really… they really like to crash and burn. That was bad.

Daniel: I mean, what’s your take on the sort of solution for Liquid at the moment? Because I feel like, from what I saw, when they went with that first European roster with Patsi and Rainwaker…

fl0m: Don’t remind me. Do not remind me…

Daniel: I feel like they lost a lot of goodwill, especially with fans like yourself. 

fl0m: Yeah, well, you’re no longer in NA team anymore and you ditched EliGE for Patsi and Rainwaker. Like, come on, man, what are we doing, what are we talking about?

Daniel: It felt like they’ve really struggled to gain that goodwill back, even as they’ve moved back to that sort of NA core.

fl0m: No, it’s insane. I’ve told this story before on my stream, but, like, I was at Dallas and I was giving jokasteve, their manager, a hard time. And I was like, “Tell me the roster moves, tell me the roster moves.” And he teases me. He’s like, “Listen, NAF and oSee are walking around and if you catch them with a drink in their hand, they might tell you.” And sure enough, I won’t say which one, but one of them told me the moves, and when they told me the moves, I didn’t believe him. It was so insane. Like, imagine somebody telling you that time that they’re ditching EliGE and you’re getting Patsi Rainwaker.

Daniel: From 500, I think at the time? Crazy.

fl0m: Yeah, yeah! You’re gonna be like, “Excuse me?” So I didn’t believe it. I literally just thought he was giving me a hard time and I just had to wait. And then I saw it, and I was just completely shocked. And then I was obviously disappointed because that team never did anything and then it’s just kind of been this revolving door of unsuccessful teams, like just a mix-up of players. You know, NAF was supposed to go to EG, one of their 12 rosters they were going to have at the time. And then they got shox and people even forget shox was there because it was so bad. And then you have this year, you know, you went, cadiaN to Twistzz to siuhy all in one go. And it just feels like… I don’t know how that team’s supposed to be successful when you’re just kind of making all these changes. And then now we obviously, -Twistzz  +EliGE, the team is exhausting.

Daniel: I feel like you’re sick of…

fl0m: And the non-fun answer is, at this point, you just have to wait. You can’t expect them to have all these changes going on all the time. One boot camp and they’re just like, “All right, yep, let’s go. Playoff run.” It’s just not how it works. I think the issue is, what we’ve seen is nobody really wants to wait already because when you play that poorly at the major, everybody’s like, “Well, what are we really waiting for? Let’s just start making some changes.” But I think that you’re just kind of shooting in the dark at that point and hoping something lands because they really don’t know what they should keep and what they should not. And I think that Liquid as an organisation has completely lost themselves in terms of… I don’t think they know what they want. I think they want the most competitive roster possible, but I don’t think they know what they want in terms of the process of how to achieve that. They don’t have any sort of identity. Like, are we an EU team? Are we an NA team? Are we going to be a team that is hyper-aggressive? Are we a team that, want pieces that are a bit more, you know, tactical in nature? Because I feel like NertZ plays more off instinct. I feel like EliGE is very analytical, flashie is analytical. siuhy plays a little bit more loose. So you have these, as you always like to hear in interviews, we have a clash of ideologies every f***ing time. That’s exactly why it just feels really weird right now.And I go back to Liquid, and I think that’s on them. That has to be considered when you’re making player moves. Yeah, a player can be good on paper. “Oh, we need a pit player and that guy is really good and he plays pit.” But also on the other side, if you’re on T side and you have a guy that likes to be methodical in how he does things versus a guy that likes the FaZe chaos-type stuff and be more instinct-based, you need to make sure that the players can operate similarly in that fashion.

Daniel: Sticking with NA CS just for one more moment, you’ve obviously got your own event coming up in Vegas. FML – fl0m’s Mythical LAN. Just talk to me a little bit about how that was to set up and what you hope to see come of it.

fl0m: Well, I hope that I basically don’t lose money.

Daniel: You’re in esports.

fl0m: Yeah, well, I know, but there’s levels to things, okay. I hope I break even, and Monster is helping me out a lot to make sure that doesn’t happen. And then basically what I’m hoping to do is like connect fans to actual players because, with how quickly we sold out the event, I think there’s real interest and we already kind of proved that. The best team there in terms of, just, popularity is probably NRG or M80. And we still sold it out instantly. There’s teams that are unsalaried that will be playing this event. Shout out to Wildcard for ChatGPTing their roster. That is part of why we’re doing that. Because you have to go down the list. So as soon as Passion doesn’t secure a visa for Kvem, and as soon as Wildcard uses AI, we have to move down the list. Everybody’s still there. Super excited. So the idea is to run more events, connect fans to players to teams and hopefully that then shows more organisations basically, “Hey, like we’re doing more stuff here. There’s real interest here. Get involved because with you guys we can all basically get on the wave together and try to work together to bring it up.” I won’t even lie to you, I’ve slid in the DMs of like every org owner I know to just be like, “Hey, if you’re in Vegas after CES, come on through, you know, come check out the event.” So yeah, connecting everything, showing that there’s real interest, and then trying to use that to generate more team support. So that way we have more players and more depth to the scene.

Daniel: Pulling back to the Major for a moment. The main thing for me, when we look at these Playoffs, are the sort of storylines in play. We’ve seen NiKo again, chasing that Major, that’s gone. FalleN with the chance to win his first after nine years.

fl0m: Gone.

Daniel: Of the ones still alive. You’ve got this FaZe comeback. You’ve got Vitality’s chances of going back-to-back. What is the storyline that you most want to see come to fruition over the next couple of days?

fl0m: I mean, to pander to everybody, it’s gotta be FaZe right? I think the back-to-back from Vitality is kind of cool. It would kind of cement them in a different category altogether. Kind of, what people forget during the Astralis run, is they did not win every single tournament. When they won their four Majors, people, they always think that they just won everything at the time. And don’t get me wrong, they won a lot, but they didn’t win literally every tournament. So Vitality has a chance to do that same thing where, Semi-Finals or the Finals in the second half of the year. And then if they win the Major, that means if they continue this good form next year and they keep getting a Major here and there, people are going to start talking about this Vitality era where they were just so dominant. Nobody sits there and looks at that roster and thinks that they have any weaknesses still. Like, we’re all just actually waiting for the sleeping giant that we all know is there. And we saw the first half of the year to come back and basically just pick up right where they left off. And with winning the Major, that’s what they’ll show, you know. So I think it’s either FaZe or Vitality. The Spirit one isn’t as fun to me because I just don’t trust zweih or tN1R to have that consistent form. So I just don’t know if they’re able to do it. It’s a little less interesting because I still feel like I’m just watching donk and sh1ro just do unspeakable things to teams as a duo.  So I’m more interested in FaZe and Vitality. I know the NAVI fans won’t be happy to hear that. But the NAVI team right now without jL isn’t as interesting to me, and I don’t want to sugarcoat it or lie to people about it.