Well, that was short-lived; 100 Thieves CEO Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag has gone to Twitter to announce that their professional Counter-Strike team is exiting from play after roughly one year in the scene.
They started the current iteration in late 2019 shortly after the Star Ladder by purchasing the Australian team Renegades and rebranding into 100 Thieves where they managed to reach the grand finals of one of the last events of the year, Intel Extreme Masters Beijing. Since then, it has unfortunately been a steady decline in statistics and tournaments.
Recently DBLTAP alleged that Complexity was close to purchasing a star player from the current 100 Thieves roster, Justin ‘jks’ Savage shortly after Chet Singh, the 100 Thieves coach, retired from CS:GO to pursue Valorant.
Ultimately, this all combines into a picture that appears to paint the organization as having considered this for the past few weeks, prior to the beginning of IEM NY.
It is with a heavy heart we announce that 100 Thieves will be exiting CS:GO. pic.twitter.com/cJqKk5Vvwp
— 100 Thieves (@100Thieves) October 12, 2020
If you find yourself a bit interested in history, then you should know that this isn’t the first time that 100 Thieves have purchased a roster, ran it for a brief stint, and then dropped it once it was clear that they weren’t going to aggregate trophies for the organization.
This is a standard means to operation, debatable, for 100 Thieves if you look past before present.
In 2017, 100 Thieves purchased a Brazilian roster core from Immortals that finished second at Krakow before being folded once it looked as though further tournaments wouldn’t be forthcoming from that edition.
100 Thieves also notes that they could well return to Counter-Strike with a different roster.
On the back of Matthew Haag announcing the exit from the scene come many allegations that the organization is going to be entering into the Call of Duty League (CDL) in tandem with their current team that has just recently solidified in Riot’s Valorant with multiple CS:GO veterans forming the team.
The role within esports, where organizations find promising new talent to feature, sell them, and fold isn’t necessarily a new one either: the Boston Uprising (and to a lesser extent, Dallas Fuel) within the Overwatch League have done much of the same in the past amongst disheartening results.
Matthew Haag states that to have maintained the team would be ‘unfair’ to roster members as CS:GO is currently shifting over to a more European center; a facet that, while having been a fact for years, is emphasized by the current popularity of Valorant within Counter-Strike.
