Daps - Builds Rosters And Gets Dropped
Topic: CS:GO Career of Daps
Thumbnail: Copyright: PGL
Damian “daps” Steele is one of North America's longest active, and greatest IGLs. Daps has been known in the scene for a while as a good IGL, but even better at finding and developing talent. If you check back through dap’s long history of teams you might notice some familiar faces that we will bring you closer in the upcoming article!
The Start of a Legend
Daps got his professional break into CS:GO back in 2012 with Dynamo Gaming, a roster of long-time CS 1.6, and Source players. This is the roster that allowed daps to qualify for the ESEA season 15 Invite division, which is today's equivalent of ESL Challenger League. He played out season 15 with the team seeing poor results, ending the season with 2 wins and 14 losses. The team stayed in Invite the next season, where daps played the first three matches, and eventually joined his first "real roster" in Lunatik Esports.
First achievement
Lunatik esports was a roster consisting of Jacob “FugLy” Medina, Shahzeb “ShaZam” Khan, Preston “Juv3nile” Dornon, and the straight-faced assassin himself, Keith “NAF” Markovic. With a team filled with now North American legends, you’d expect to see bright things from the squad. The boys played well with their budding new roster and were invited to the FACEIT - NA Championship 2014.
It was a small event, but a good test of skill for the new roster. They achieved a strong 3/4 place finish among other strong NA teams like iBUYPOWER, and NetcodeGuides. Their good performance eventually led to Denial Esports picking up the squad.
The First Tragedy
The roster started their run under Denial well, placing fourth in CEVO Season 5 Professional, and second in GXL Universe 2014, where they lost to Cloud9 in the finals. The team continued to place well throughout events, but roster changes eventually happened. The team picked up nitr0, and left their organisation Denial after just two months for Team Liquid.
Dap’s team Liquid played well but never saw them break into the Tier-1 atmosphere that they longed for. This lack of achievements eventually saw Liquid replacing daps, NAF, and FugLy, after just a 5-month stint with the org, and the players all went their separate ways.
Steele bounced from Elevate to sponsorless, where he met back up with ShaZam, and NAF, as well as adding ryx, and another soon-to-be North American GOAT, Will “RUSH” Wierzba. The team wasn’t sponsorless for long, as they got picked up by Conquest. Soon after joining up with Conquest ryx promptly left the roster due to internal issues, and the team recruited yet another legend of NA to the team, Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz.
Under conquest Steeles roster was able to put up some great finishes, most notably a third-place finish at ESL ESEA Pro League Season 2 - North America, and a 3/4 placement in CEVO Season 8 Professional. Once again it was time for a move to a new organisation, the team was picked up by OpTic Gaming.
Damiens Personal Demon
Under OpTic the team saw new heights, winning both ELEAGUE Road to Vegas and the Americas Minor Championship - Cologne 2016. They looked strong, and under daps’ leadership, the roster flourished. However, as is the fate of daps, roster changes were inevitable. The team initially parted ways with ShaZam in April for mixwell and dropped stanislaw for yet another NA great, Tarik “tarik” Celik.
Sadly, all good things come to an end for daps, as he was eventually replaced for stanislaw to return as IGL. This ended up being the right move for OpTic, as they won the Northern Arena 2016 - Montreal, and ELEAGUE Season 2 soon after his departure. This would turn out to be nothing but a bitter feeling for daps, as the roster he built showed so much success once he was out of the picture.
Stan does it again
Daps did as daps does, he started building a new team. He joined up with NRG Esports in late 2016 and began to build a squad with great up-and-coming players. Steele built a roster of ptr, FugLy, LILMAN, and once again, a soon-to-be great of the scene, Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte. The team had middling results, and not much success at first.
Eventually, daps stepped down to coach, but in less than a month came back into the active lineup. The NRG lineup saw various changes throughout the years, and with those changes came various levels of performance. The team was able to place well in various big tournaments, with an exceptional first-place finish at Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII - Shanghai. The Team eventually ended up with a roster of tarik, Ethan, CeRq, and Brehze. As the story goes for Daps there is a man that "ruins" all his hard work. On June 11th, 2019 stanislaw replaced Steele on the starting lineup.
Passion In His Blood
Daps afterward went to work with Cloud9 and Gen.G, where both teams ended up unsuccessful despite having promising rosters. Steele eventually went to coaching Evil Geniuses then retired and played a few months under the NRG Valorant roster. 
After so much heartbreak a departure from CS:GO was anticipated for the American IGL, however as many lovers of the game know, you can leave the game, but the game doesn’t leave you.
Daps has returned to CS:GO for ESEA Ecl Season 40 and has picked up some talented young players. The roster consists of Kenneth "koosta" Suen, Michael "Swisher" Schmid, Brendan "Bwills" William and Marshall "Minus" Sedowicz. The team currently sits at a record of 2-1, losing one series to Carpe Diem. Only time will tell how this new daps roster will turn out, but one thing is for sure, somehow stanislaw will try to ruin things.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed reading through this article about Damian "daps" Steele history and development. Logically our goal was to deliver it in an enjoyable way to read and don't want to bring anyone in a bad spotlight! If you´re interested in more CS:GO related articles check out our General category below!
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