Team Finest Shuts Down Its CS:GO And Valorant Divisions

Israeli esports organization Team Finest has shut down all of its esports divisions, including Valorant and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams. The decision comes following financial struggles and sees Finest pull the plug on its esports projects after two years.

On Thursday, October 6, Team Finest announced that it is shutting down all of its professional esports divisions, including CS:GO and Valorant teams. The news came out of the blue, but Finest explained in a Twitlonger post that the organization struggles financially after key investors backed out of making further investments.

“It is with a heavy heart, but after nearly two years of successful esports operations and building up of the Finest brand and community, we are shutting down our professional esports operations,” read the announcement.

“This was not something we foresaw happening a couple of weeks back but rather one that was forced on us after key investors backed out of making further investments into the company. This was all due to macro-economic situations the world is presently facing and the fact that owning an esports team is still a very speculative investment.”

Despite shutting down its CS:GO and Valorant teams, Finest does not intend to exit the esports scene entirely. Instead, the Israeli organization will look to continue its operations within the gaming and esports world and pivot into products, services, and technologies.

“We deeply apologize for this unfortunate ending and want to also thank our loyal fans who supported us from day one on our journey. However, we are not giving up just yet, and Finest is looking to continue operating within the gaming and esport industries and will pivot into technologies, products, and services.”

So while this is not the end of Team Finest, we likely won’t see Team Finest’s banner in the CS:GO or Valorant scene for the foreseeable future.

Team Finest’ disbanding its CS:GO team came as a shock to many, mainly due to the team’s success over the years. Although Finest CS:GO team didn’t win any big events, they’ve left a mark in the scene with occasional flashes of greatness.

Since the team first came together in August 2019, Team Finest have attended a handful of important CS:GO events. And they even achieved some success in lesser competitions, namely ESEA tournaments.

Notably, in May 2022, Team Finest won its biggest tournament title in the organization’s history when they won Pinnacle Cup IV, which qualified them for the Pinnacle Cup Championship. Although Finest couldn’t emulate their success from the Pinnacle Cup IV, they’ve done enough to finish Pinnacle Cup Championship in fourth place after losing to the eventual champions, Heroic, in the lower bracket semi-finals.

Their success in May and a strong finish at Pinnacle Cup Championship saw Team Finest peak at no.19 in the global CS:GO rankings in June. Unfortunately, since Finest has not won a single title, they fell to no.55.

Just like its CS:GO division, Team Finest’s Valorant team has achieved some success since its inception in September 2020, but nothing extraordinary. They won a couple of lower-tier tournaments, such as VERSUS LEGENDS, and they have achieved some success in VCT Europe, but Finest have never attended any big events.

In March, they finished VRL 2022 East: Surge Stage 1 in sixth place and failed to grab a promotion to the VCT.

It remains to be seen what the future holds for Team Finest’ CS:GO andfValorant rosters, but it’s fair to assume that most of the players will get picked up by other esports organizations shortly. That especially holds true for the CS:GO lineup, which has shown a lot of promise in 2022.