Today, we are announcing that the Selfless ownership team (myself and Brad) will be stepping away from the Selfless organization to pursue opportunities that have arisen in the past few months. While the details of said opportunities cannot be shared at the moment, they are very exciting and more will be unveiled as time moves on.

We are very proud of what we've built here, and would love to see the brand live on, so if you or someone you know would be interested in carrying it forward, please contact us via email (). This would make a great opportunity for the right person or group, and I’m more than happy to spend the necessary time to ensure it ends up in the right set of hands.

While considering this decision, we have been working hard behind the scenes to find trustworthy organizations for our remaining teams and players where possible, and have the following updates on that front:

First, we have finalized terms of a transfer of our world-class Rocket League team to an organization to be named later (as they're finalizing the press release and such on their end), including Mijo, Timi, and Dappur. They will continue to compete together, and our Rocket League team, from starters to sleeveless streamers, subs, to management and staff, have been nothing short of stellar, as has been the engagement and support from the Rocket League fans. We couldn’t be more proud and thankful for all of you. 

On the Smash Melee front, Hugo and Lucky have both finished their contract terms and are free agents, looking for new homes effective immediately. Both are great guys and competitors with strong individual brands, and I’m personally hoping to see them signed to new organizations in the very near future—and willing to help make this happen in any way I can— but know that if it takes a little longer than planned, their communities will support them and allow them to continue living their dreams. Joey and Hugo, you guys rock and I’m looking forward to sharing some high quality craft brews with you soon (because that’s what we drink, am I right?).

With respect to Killer Instinct, Fiyah Liger will continue to be the world’s greatest Riptor, bringing dinosaur domination to the Killer Instinct scene so long as he hasn’t picked up another FGC title to compete in. Damien, it was a blast meeting you at CEO in 2016, bringing you on board, and watching you compete. I have a feeling you’re going to switch games soon, but even if you don’t, I’m confident you’ll continue to find success in and out of the game.

Finally, onto the Overwatch team-- since the launch of Overwatch we have fielded a team, and that team has become a prime example of what can be achieved through intentional, purposeful, hard work. While initially we struggled to find success, through said hard work and dedication we cemented ourselves as one of the top teams in the region throughout 2017, and we are extremely proud of this accomplishment.

Unfortunately, with many other organizations releasing their rosters, and given talks we’ve had with those in the space, we were not able to sell our team as a whole to any other organizations.

We absolutely expect to see our players competing in the upcoming Overwatch League, albeit likely with different logos. To the team—you guys are all incredible players, and all of your matches, whether they were wins or losses, were incredibly intense and entertaining—with several of them contending for the greatest matches in competitive Overwatch to date. We’re looking forward to seeing you continue to compete in whatever shape that takes. 

We cannot thank you all enough for the amazing love and support you’ve shared with our organization, our teams, players, coaches and staff over the past 2 years. It’s been an amazing ride and we’re eternally grateful to all of you.

If I can ask one final thing of all of you reading this before I exit, it’s that you continue to show love and support to those who have competed under the Selfless banner. Many of them stream, several are on other teams, and each has made an impact in one way or another on the scene.

I am super excited to see this next chapter unfold and can't wait to share more--

With love,

-Ryu

After the recent player transactions, and after careful consideration of the status of the team, our recent results, and the overall marketplace, we have decided to release our CS:GO team.

This was a very difficult decision to make, as the Selfless brand itself was founded on the back of Counter-Strike, but the time has come for us to take a few steps back and reevaluate our position. All of our players have been released of their contracts and will be paid a severance, which we included in our player contracts (lots of other orgs don’t, by the way).

While speaking with the players following this decision, I encouraged them to continue to compete and gain as much experience as possible in the Pro League this season. If they turn things around and do well, I let them know I would help them find another org to sign with.

dsr will be going back to work full time, and won't be able to dedicate to CSGO in the near future. The rest of the players, however, agreed with the above plan, and you will see them continue to compete for the remainder of the Pro League season independent of Selfless, albeit with a different 5th player.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor the CS:GO marketplace and see if there are any opportunities that make sense, and go from there.

I was hoping to have some time to stream and take questions about how and why we came to this decision, but I'm supposed to be hitting the road shortly and don't have the time today. It is something I will try to address via text as possible this weekend. 

-Ryu

Today we are announcing that after a short trial period with the Complexity CS:GO team, Alec "Slemmy" White has been sold and transferred to the Complexity organization. 

Slemmy started to practice and compete with our team some time back in November/December of 2016, preparing us for the WESG LAN Finals in Changzhou, as well as our (then) upcoming relegation match against Luminosity. His hard work and in-game leadership were valuable to the development of our team, and under that leadership we were able to make it into the playoffs at WESG, and, through a second chance at redemption, back into the ESL Pro League for this current season.

We're very happy to have competed with him for the period that we did. So please join me in wishing him well as he moves on from the Selfless CS:GO team to the next step in his CS:GO career.

-Ryu

Today I'm super excited to announce that, after months of hard work, we are finally able to reassemble some of the former members of Selfless CS:GO. Please join me in welcoming back our new starting 5:

• Koosta 
• Nifty
• Brehze
• Relyks
• Ryu

After averaging an almost .9 FPR in ESL Pro League this season, I've decided to make a return to the game as a player and in-game leader. 

Wish us luck!

-Ryu

Today, we are announcing the completion of the sale and transfer of Noah "Nifty" Francis to the Detroit Renegades. 

Noah has been with our team since the very beginning of our official run as Selfless Gaming. We brought him on board about a year ago from the team he had been competing with in Premier, and almost immediately afterwards, we began a few months of travel. 

Since that time, he's competed with us in all of our online events, as well as offline events in London, Brazil, China, Canada, Texas, Ohio, and Atlanta. He's stood out as a high potential player to many, and showcased both skill, style, and fun in many highlights, including this one, where his contagious laughter made the caster and our teammates laugh with him. 

He has consistently put in hard work and is a great example of so many of the principles I personally preach in my videos, tweets, and so on. While it is sad to see him go, I'm very excited to see him compete with Renegades, and the firepower that their team has been able to assemble. 

Please join me in wishing Nifty the best of luck with the Detroit Renegades! 

-Ryu

Today we are announcing completion of the sale and transfer of our female CS:GO team to Team Dignitas/Philadelphia 76ers. 

The girls joined our organization in July of last year, and have been nothing short of outstanding ambassadors to us, our brand, and our message. Their hard work and dedication resulted in them advancing divisions in league play, performing well at offline events at home and abroad, and climbing the ranks of the female pro scene (now recognized as the #2 team in the world).

Outside of the game, they were regularly featured in the media, including documentaries on CNN and Audience Sports. They participated in dozens of interviews, and often found themselves at meet and greets while attending events all over the U.S. 

I love these girls and will miss seeing them in Selfless purple, but know they'll be in great hands as they continue on with the Dignitas/76ers organization. 

So please join me in wishing the ladies a bittersweet farewell, and continue to show them your love and support as they transition into their new home. 

Thank you ladies for all of your hard work! <3 

-Ryu

Today we are announcing a change to our pro CS:GO roster. After competing with the team last season, at Northern Arena Toronto, all the way through WESG in China, Matthew "no_one" Congdon will be stepping down from the team. 

Following our relegation matches, Matt indicated the desire to take a break from competition, and we feel this is best for all involved. We'd like to thank Matt for all his hard work and dedication, for being a great teammate, and for providing us with endless laughs and Smarties candy.

Replacing Matt in our starting five will be Chris "cJ-dA-K1nG" Jones, who has been promoted from a backup slot. cJ's is a very talented player with a strong rifle and good communication, and we're looking forward to competing with him this season.

Please join us in sending well wishes to Matt in his future endeavors, and officially welcome CJ to the Selfless CS:GO lineup.

-Ryu

Today we are excited to announce that CATH has joined our female CS:GO team as our official 5th!

You can follow CATH at the following links:

Twitch

-Ryu

As we've continued hard work on improving our Overwatch team going into the new year, we went through a handful of players as options to be our 5th/6th. It took a while, but we're finally able to announce our changes.

Please join me in welcoming Kresnik, dafran, and LegitRc to the Selfless Overwatch team! 

Kresnik and dafran are our new 5th and 6th, and we've added LegitRC as our official Overwatch team coach. This brings our roster to:

• Emongg
• Sinatraa
• Michael3D
• dhaK
• Kresnik
• dafran
• LegitRc (Coach)

The guys are currently in our team house in the Atlanta area on the grind, working hard to be ready for whatever pops up in the Overwatch competitive scene in 2017.

You can catch most of them streaming regularly, so make sure you have our Twitch stream page bookmarked! (http://twitch.tv/team/selflessgg) 

-Ryu

While I know it's full-blown meme status to hate on 2016 for being "the worst year ever", to me, it was a great year. I can't thank you all enough for allowing us to have the opportunities we did in 2016.

Going back to the start of the year, it's crazy to think that Selfless as a legal entity and organization didn't even exist. We were coming off contracts and a bit of a shaky relationship with our former org, Koosta was being given an opportunity to compete for Team Liquid with a chance to "take the next step" in his gaming career, and we were attending a Major qualifier. 

It had been several months that I was without a full time job, and I found myself in a situation where I needed to decide between going back to a "normal job", or to try and find a way to make going "full-time esports" work. I shopped our CS:GO team around a little bit to see if there were any orgs interested in picking us up, while also looking for investors to allow me to start an org myself, having already picked out the name we used the year prior. 

Fortunately, Brad, the co-owner of Selfless, saw me on a Richard Lewis episode, and reached out, having the funds to start the org and to begin building what we have today. It's been a busy, wild, hard-fought adventure ever since, and made 2016 as memorable as any year I've lived so far. 

To say it's been unpredictable would be a massive understatement. We accomplished some great things, and faced challenges, obstacles, and issues that required us to rapidly shift and pivot. We brought some talented players on board, and we let some great players go. We had big wins, big upsets, and big losses. We won events, exceeded expectations, and came up short on a few. We expanded into old games, new games, and some rapidly growing games. We caught up to and quickly surpassed many of our peers, both in game and out. And man, we LAUGHED A LOT along the way.

While I believe 2017 will go down in history as a hallmark year for esports, I can't say or predict how it will or won't benefit us. What I can say is that we'll do our best and continue to adapt as necessary, and who knows, maybe the New York Giants will want to jump into esports and come knocking on our door. 

To close the year, I offer you this simple advice: Start making 2017 the best year of your life as soon as possible (like, right now). Too often people focus so much on the destination that they never spend any time planning the trip. So set the destination, map out the path to get there, and get to it. No excuses. Grind. Work hard. Chase your passion. Aim high.

THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart (and in no particular order), to: 

• Our fans
• Brad
• Mainline
• Richard Lewis
• Nifty
• Koosta
• Brehze
• Relyks
• Uber
• Lucky
• Hugs
• Mitch
• Clutch Chairz
• Meta-Threads
• EMUHLEET
• rain
• Goosebreeder
• Raerae
• artStar
• sapphiRe
• emongg
• Kellar
• SInatraa
• juv3nile
• Michael3D
• dhaK
• rob-wiz
• Kaboose
• no_one
• Sintilla
• moXie
• LOPEZOMG
• BriezyHeart
• Dappur
• JKnaps
• Timi
• Mijo
• AMONEY
• Fiyah_Liger
• Sicarri
• b1am
• ConNoR93
• oso
• Matt
• Sizz
• Rlx
• Skyy
• Crucian
• HotWheelsSid
• Slemmy
• Kresnik

-Ryu

 

It's been known for some time, but today we officially announce the transfer of Vincent "Brehze" Cayonte to NRG Esports. Brehze has shown himself to be a highly skilled, capable player, and I personally look forward to seeing him continue his rise to the top of the NA region as one its best players. 

As part of our release agreement with NRG for the acquisition of Brehze, we retained the ability to have him compete with our team at the WESG Finals event in China next month. It will likely be the last official event in which Brehze competes under the Selfless logo. We're very grateful for his time, service, and hard work put in as he competed with us, and hope to send him out in style at this event. 

After completing the Visa process successfully, today we are able to announce the starting 5 we will be competing with at the WESG LAN Finals in China. That 5 will be: 

• Nifty
• Kaboose
• no_one
• Brehze
• Slemmy 

The new name on the list, Slemmy, will be leading the team at the event, providing the in-game leadership and bringing a new level of structure to the team. While we are still working through some roster options for the rest of the events and into 2017, we believe that Slemmy will remain as the 4th member of our team. 

Thank you all for your continued love and support! We're very grateful for the 2016 you've allowed us to have, and are honored to be representing the United States of America at the WESG Finals in January. 

-Ryu 

Today we announce the signing of Smash Melee Legend, Hugo "Hugs" Gonzalez. I've known Hugo for a while now, and was able to meet him at CEO in Orlando and then again more recently at TwitchCon, and I'm very happy to finally be able to bring him in to the #SELFLESSPride. 

Hugo has been an active contributor and vocal leader in the Smash community for over a decade. He hails from SoCal, where he participates in the local events on a regular basis. Like so many other gamers and esports competitors, he tried to go down the "normal career" path, landed a job at a major corporate accounting firm, and then left it to pursue his passion for competitive gaming.

He has one of the best streams in all of Smash, in which deep, thought provoking topics are regularly discussed (cereals, hand models, etc.), and he has a loyal and passionate fan following.

We're grateful to have him, and hope you all give him a huge, warm, Selfless welcome! 

Twitch.tv/Hugs86

-Ryu

 

Today we announce changes to both of our CS:GO teams. It's been pretty quiet on the Selfless CS:GO front for a month or so, and for good reason. During this "off-season" for our teams, we've spent time evaluating different options, and to some degree, are continuing to do so as I write this. 

That said, after discussing with the team and with Mitch directly, we've decided it's best for both parties to part ways, and allow Mitch to pursue other opportunities. We've thoroughly enjoyed competing with "Uncle Mitch", and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors. 

On our female CS:GO team (Selfless Purple?), the ladies have decided to look for a new 5th to replace raerae, who has since been released. I'd like to thank Regan for her service in helping our female team continue its growth and progress, with a recent 2nd place finish out at ESWC. Regan is a very talented player, and we wish her well as she continues her competitive career. 

As stated above, we are continuing to explore all options, both with building/upgrading our own roster, as well as possible player transactions/trades with other organizations. It's been a crazy off season and the "NA Shuffle" rumor mill is in full swing, with a lot of possible changes to a growing list of teams. 

Thank you again for your continued love and support-- can never thank you all enough for the year we've had. 

-Ryu

After going undefeated in the qualifier while also competing at Fragadelphia at the time, the ladies of our female CS:GO team had a near equally impressive run out in Paris at the ESWC Female World Championship.

Despite dropping the first map of the event, our ladies ran through the rest of the competition all the way up until the grand final. In Group Play, the ladies bounced back and in fairly dominating fashion, took out regional rivals CLG Red in a best of 3 series to advance to the semi-finals. In the semis, we took on LDLC Female, and took 2 straight maps to secure our spot in the Grand Finals against Team Secret. 

The Grand Finals lived up to the hype, as an intense series lead up to a decisive third map, where we unfortunately came up just a bit short. Congratulations to Team Secret on the win, and great games to all the teams we played this past weekend. 

We're very proud of our team and what they've accomplished so quickly, and can't wait for our next event! Please join me in congratulating our female CS:GO team on climbing the ranks and finishing the ESWC Female World Championship in 2nd place (and hopefully securing a direct invite for next year)!

-Ryu

It's been quite some time since we've made any official announcements on the Overwatch front. Given some upcoming events and expected news, we wanted to share our new, finalized and official roster. So here it is:

• emongg
• Michael3D
• Rob-wiz
• dhaK

After some internal discussions, the team decided to shift around some of the different in-game role assignments to free up spots for very strong DPS players. In that shuffle, we were able to find and recruit Kellar and Sinatraa, who are currently the #1 and #2 ranked players in the North American region for Overwatch to fill in the damage-dealing duties. 

As a result of these changes, we say goodbye to "juv3nile", who has since joined Team Kingdom, and continues to compete in the Overwatch scene. 

We are extremely excited about our new lineup, which secured its first event win in the Hallows End tournament last night in dominating fashion. Please join me in welcoming Sinatraa and Kellar to the team, and be sure to follow them on Twitter and Twitch (where they stream regularly).

-Ryu

This weekend in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Selfless CS:GO team, also known as Team America, were crowned champions of the WESG Americas region! 

After dominating all throughout Group Play, defeating teams from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, we secured our place to the WESG Grand Finals event in China, in addition to a direct spot in the Americas Regional semi-finals.

In the semi-finals we faced off against Team One, another team from Brazil, and were able to secure a quick best of 3 victory in 2-0 fashion. This put us into the finals against North American rival Canada, featuring the legendary KKona Ocean ODEAG. After blowing a lead on the first map, we lost it in overtime, and had to come back in the best of 3 series from a 0-1 deficit. 

On the next two maps, however, we were able to secure convincing wins, bringing home a championship to America from an international event. We'd also like to point out that since changing our logo, the fellas from the CS:GO team have not lost a series. LOGO ENERGY? Maybe.

Super excited about the win and being able to represent America not only at this event, but at the $1,500,000 LAN finals in China!

-Ryu

If you know me well, you'll know how much I love to learn. I love asking thoughtful questions and then having deeper discussions to help me understand a concept, someone's job, a new technology or product, and so on. So when I tell you that I now know more about logos and logo design than I ever thought I would, you can be certain that I'm not exaggerating. 

To start out, let me address our old logo, which some loved, some hated. What makes the logo "good" is that it's aesthetically pleasing, it's very readable (you can tell it's a lion), and it's recognizable. However, it uses color gradients (shades of different colors throughout), doesn't look very good when shrunk down, isn't very versatile in its use, and looks "okay" on clothing. 

On the business side, because there are so many colors and shades in that logo, it's considered a 5-8 ink print (different printers gave me differing estimates), which means that when we get t-shirts printed, we have to pay a much higher price because it requires the use of a lot of inks.  

Long story short, it's a cool graphic, but not a great logo. We decided on the logo we did because it hit the mark on the key qualities that have proven to be hallmarks of a great logo.

Not so surprisingly, these things are often overlooked/ignored/not considered in the world of esports. Some of the qualities are:

• Simple, Clean & Readable
• Versatile - Can be used in many ways, sizes, formats, on merchandise, avatars, etc.
• Memorable 
• Colors - 3-4 or less, and have bi-color and single color options 
• Appropriate - Meaning it's not overlay violent or 'adult' in the esports world

Our old logo had some of the above, but definitely failed on the versatility and color fronts. And remember, the above is only a small number of traits that make a great logo, but those are traits that almost all great logos have. I was also surprised to learn that a lot of organizations choose the same colors-- in fact, something like 1/3rd of companies use blue, and almost 1/3 use red... kind of a snoozer, and that helped shape the decision to keep our main color theme.

Another key thing to remember is that the logo isn't the end-all-be-all. The real value of the logo is what it comes to represent, as Michael Beirut puts it "[logos are] empty vessels in a way, and you pour the meaning into them". (Who is Mr. Beirut? The designer behind the logos of United Airlines, Billboard, Hilary Clinton's campaign, Verizon, and countless other major brands.)

Okay, now to the good part-- our NEW logo. I'm super excited to have this finally in place, and the decision making process itself was quite draining. Not only does this logo hit the mark on the items above, its versatility is awesome and it looks incredible on in game items and on merchandise, which can be the difference between no sales, some sales, and a lot of sales (hopefully the latter, be sure to get yourself some Selfless merchandise ASAP). 

This logo still maintains a clear image of a lion, but also combines a new element, the "S", which works as a great logo on its own and can be used in cases where image size becomes a constraint. The additional versatility comes with the ability to color, or not color, all of the various elements of the logo itself. Check these versions out:

So if you have questions on a logo or are considering a new logo/redesign and you have questions, I can confidently say I can personally provide you some accurate guidance. It's worth spending the time to learn, to ask questions, and to test some things out. 

One other major lesson I learned through the process was that traditional graphics designers who normally do stellar work, will likely fail when it comes to creating a logo. It seems to truly be its own "art" in that respect. As a non-graphics person myself, I didn't realize just how separate this skill is from other creative graphics work. 

I'd like to give a special thanks to the amazing people involved for their long (sometimes grueling I'm sure), hard work on this logo. They do great work out there, and if you're in the market for a new logo, these are the guys to reach out to. 

—  — jayhigginbotham.com 

—  — leviwhuddleston.com

Now I'm also very excited to announce that we finally have our own merchandise store online, and are, as of this moment, taking pre-orders on a few items. Thank you in advance for your support, and for everything that you guys have done and continue to do to show us love. I could never thank you enough.

-Ryu