Perkz is one of the most accomplished LoL pros of all time, defining the golden age of G2 and being one of the only players that was able to best super teams from South Korea and China. Once upon a time, he was one of the few hopes the West had of winning a World Championship.
Though it’s been years since a Western team has really shown up at an international, G2’s 2019 team changed everything. From winning MSI and dominating domestically to falling just short of winning Worlds 2019, every member of that roster was immortalized in LoL’s competitive history.
Perkz tried to hit those same highs on other teams, but wasn’t able to make his mark. Though he had high points on Cloud9 and Team Vitality, he ultimately failed to get back to that 2019 peak.
So, Perkz decided to call it. Now that he’ll be a father soon, he’s stepping away from pro play permanently and is moving on to other things.
Perkz retires from LoL pro play after illustrious career
Though it wasn’t the first team he was a part of, Perkz joining Gamers2 in 2015 was a historic moment in League of Legends history. It was a time before the G2 rebrand and marked the beginning of the best roster a Western LoL team had ever built.
Even with Caps and Perkz both being native mid laners, putting the two of them on a team together was a magical combination. As both a mid laner and an ADC, Perkz shined with G2’s peak roster of Wunder, Jankos, Caps, and Mikyx. Their synergy as a team was so good that it didn’t much matter which roles either player got put into.
Leaving this legacy with G2 behind, Perkz has officially announced that he’s retiring and has no plans to return to pro play.
“I’m retiring from playing competitively. I’m retiring at 26 years old. It sounds crazy, but it’s esports,” he said.
“All the bad things that come with stress from competing, that I don’t want to manage it anymore. I’ve always given it all to my playing career, to the teams I’ve been a part of. I think many can attest to that. Sometimes my all wasn’t enough, and sometimes my all wasn’t in the right direction, but I gave it my all.”
The now-former pro claims that the Perkz name is “dead”, and that he’s moving on to being a father and living his life.
Perkz isn’t sure what he’s going to do now that he’s retired, as he plans to take a few months away for the imminent birth of his first child and to make sure he’s able to be there for both his firstborn and his wife.
With Mikyx and Caps being the only two pros from this golden G2 roster still competing in the LEC, it’s only a matter of time until Europe will have to move on from its best team ever and invest in new talent.
