After watching our favourite players on stage for a long time, we realise that they grow old. Even though esports is a sport for young people, the mental focus of the players starts to get worse after a while. Since training and pace of play are something that requires strong mental health, it is best to start esports very early and finish your career in your late 20s.
But what happens when an esports player ends his career? We took a look at some old players you know and featured 5 retired pros and their life after esports.
Bjergsen
For all League of Legends lovers, Bjergsen has been an important figure with the success he achieved in his Team SoloMid career between 2014-2020. He is also known as one of the best mid-lane players on NA LCS, which is acceptable given his six LCS titles and five World Championship appearances.
After his retirement, he became not only head coach but also co-owner of Team SoloMid. Furthermore, he has 1.5 million followers on the broadcast platform Twitch and you can sometimes see him live.
He announced his comeback on the professional stage in 2022 with an Instagram post as a midlaner for Team Liquid.
Doublelift
As the professional esports player with the most LCS championships in history, Doublelift is a well-known North American League of Legends player with careers with Counter Logic Gaming, Team SoloMid and Team Liquid. He has always been a part of the LCS since its inception. He participated in the first Worlds Season 1 with Epik Gamer in 2011 and finished 4th in the tournament.
On 10 November 2021, the legend decided to retire from his professional League of Legends career at the age of 28 and continues today as a streamer on Twitch.
Life
A Zerg player of StarCraft II, Life, is the youngest WCS World Champion winning the title at the age of 17. He played for ZeNEX, StarTale, KT Rolster and finally Afreeca Freecs in his StarCraft II career. He shocked StarCraft II aficionados when his name was also mentioned in connection with the match-fixing scandal in 2016.
He was charged by South Korean prosecutors on 21 April 2016 over the match-fixing scandal in the KeSPA Cup Season 1 of 2015. He had forfeited matches in the first and second rounds of the tournament against Dream and Terminator. As a result, he was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment, suspended for three years, and a fine of 70,000,000 South Korean won (~$60.000). ESPN said that this event was the most disappointing in esports of 2016.
The suspended StarCraft II player Life makes us wonder, because after this crime scandal there has been nothing more to hear from him for a long time.
Flash
The king, the leader, the GOAT... Words are not enough when it comes to describing the best StarCraft II player of all time Flash, which is an acceptable title when you look at his skills in the game and his 70% win rate in every match-up, as well as his Starleague wins, which no single StarCraft II player has received. He became the greatest player after defeating Jaedong, who was considered the best Zerg player in the world. His prize money won in StarCraft is $500,000.
The legendary KT Rolster player decided to retire from his eight-year professional StarCraft II career, which began in 2007 and ended in 2015.
His broadcasting career began in February 2016 on AfreecaTV, a South Korean broadcasting platform, and he still continues to stream with a total of 314,648 followers.
Ocelote
The Spanish professional esports player Ocelote started his career with World of Warcraft, reaching Blizzcon 2009 in the 3on3 finals. His League of Legends career started in beta, but he took a break to finish his studies. When he returned in 2010, he moved from Dimegio Clan to SK Gaming and left the team on 31 December 2013.
Not his career, but his great contribution to esports began with the founding of G2 Esports on 24 February 2014, initially under the name Gamers2. The team he founded is now one of the most successful teams on all esports stages and is also considered one of the richest organisations of 2020.
As you can see in our article, most esports players have stayed in the esports arena by broadcasting, starting their own team or sharing their coaching experiences with the news. We have also seen how cheating can end a player's career very early. There are some lessons to be learned from this for young people who want to get into esports.
You can follow Ocelote's G2 Esports and Bjergsen's new home Team Liquid via Luckbox and bet on exciting matches.
