The Team That Gave oBo His Competitive Debut Disbands
Adaptation has spent the past seven years developing future pros and participating in small online events. It was originally an American organisation in 2014 before switching to European operations in mid-2020. Their redemption roster became org-less after lacking public funding from potential investors within the esports community. Because of this, Adaptation didn’t have a successful comeback but still went down in history as a great team. Unlike the rest of the greats, Adaptation earned very little in cash prizes but mainly put their focus towards developing players. They didn’t want to be the next big team, but instead provided staffing for up and coming pros that needed their competitive debut.
ADAPTING TO CS:GO
Three years after founding the company, Matt “dayV1D” David and Jeremy “Jeremy9000” Gray officially released their first lineup for ESEA Premier Season 26. Back in the day, these leagues were mostly known for teams like Rise Nation and SoaR Gaming; teams that are no longer active to this day but were once recognised as the best amateur teams in North America. Adaptation brought on a roster that included Owen “oBo” Schlatter before his time with Complexity Gaming. He competed alongside Brite “Brite” Bang, Chris “draWsouL” Drossel, Mitch “gloRinsz” MacInnis, and James “JamezIRL” Macaulay. The five starters had a rough finish but still managed to get a spot in the ESEA Season 27 Main Division.
Adaptation had their fair share of struggles which resulted in three players leaving the team. While oBo left for Guerrilla Tactics, he still helped his first official team finish second in the ESEA Season 25 Main Finals. Broken Alliance took their first place title, but Adaptation was able to earn just under two thousand dollars, providing the players with a few hundred dollars each, including oBo, who was only 14 at the time. Singing Adam “juice” Sar, Jonathan “djay” Dallal, and Austin “crashies” Roberts was a big deal at the time. In 2017, they were pub-stompers on ESEA that wanted to join their first competitive lineup.
On January 13, 2018, Adaptation announced their departure from competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) after getting demoted to the Main Division in ESEA. The difference between Premier and Main is huge for teams trying to find investors. Premier events provide players with Global Challenger seed spots with a chance to earn even more money than those who play in Main. They compete in prize pools that often register between five and six figures, the amount of money that new teams need to fund their rosters. Main events are mostly made up of casual players on small teams that compete for a few thousand dollars, not exactly what Adaptation had in mind when forming their very own roster. Team owners Matt David and Jeremy Gray had disagreements with how to run their team resulting in ceasing all operations.
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MEET THE OWNER
Matt, who had the most experience in competitive CS:GO, moved on to coach for five other teams before coming back to Adaptation in 2020. Before co-founding Adaptation, Matt spent the first three years of his career organising tournaments and managing multiple teams. He helped create tournaments under the company RGN and eventually moved onto managing SKDC, Team AGG, KKona, Ze Pug Godz, and Mortal Kombat. After coaching Insomnia Esports and Kings Gaming Club, Matt spent an entire year with Counter Logic Gaming as an analyst. Once he left Adaptation, ORDER was in need of a new coach. Matt helped them finish first at the World Electronic Sports Games event with a forty thousand dollars grand prize.
Click to enlargeTIME FOR A COMEBACK
For the first time in seven years, Adaptation formed an org-less European roster with the help of Matt David. The co-owner that never gave up on his previous org he once worked for. His newest roster consisted of Shiran “shushan” Shushan, Guy “Nertz” Iluz, Tal “meztal” Hahiashvili, Kristjan “fejtZ” Allsaar, and Maksim “t0rick” Zaikin. They played in multiple qualifiers but didn’t have a lot of success without private funding. Adaptation was invited to Nine to Five along with sixteen other group stage teams. They had a good start going 2-1 in their entry matches, but didn't make it to the playoffs.
Even though Adaptation had a terrible start to their European comeback season, an org by the name of Team Finest was interested in the roster. They ended up singing all five players along with Matt as their head coach on November 24. Team Finest has yet to play in a tournament, but the org looks promising, they’re sponsored by Logitech and MSI along with multiple investors from Israel. Adaptation finally has a chance to become successful outside of training players. Maybe they’ll finally find a consistent fanbase along with multiple top three placements in Europe.
No matter what happens, Adaptation is no doubt one of the most influential teams in North American CS:GO. Now it's time for Adaptation to prove themselves to the world under a different org.
Images via Liquipedia
