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