  An uncontroversial observation of adjoint string breaking is proposed, while
measuring the static potential from Wilson loops only. The overlap of the
Wilson loop with the broken-string state is small, but non-vanishing, so that
the broken-string groundstate can be seen if the Wilson loop is long enough. We
demonstrate this in the context of the (2+1)d SU(2) adjoint static potential,
using an improved version of the Luscher-Weisz exponential variance reduction.
To complete the picture we perform the more usual multichannel analysis with
two basis states, the unbroken-string state and the broken-string state (two
so-called gluelumps).
  As by-products, we obtain the temperature-dependent static potential measured
from Polyakov loop correlations, and the fundamental SU(2) static potential
with improved accuracy. Comparing the latter with the adjoint potential, we see
clear deviations from Casimir scaling.
