After more than a decade of professional play, Peter ‘Doublelift’ Peng has officially decided to “hang up his mouse” from the LoL esports scene.

Image Credit: @Doublelift1

Doublelift and the reasons of his retirement

The North American player officially announced his retirement on December 1, 2023, through a 14-minute long video explaining his decision and going over his career in competitive. “I’m retiring, for real this time,” he said in the video. The player previously took a break from competitive following a disappointing Worlds 2020 on TSM.

Doublelift mentioned that the financial struggles the LCS and esports in general saw recently were the driving factors. “This next year, because of the climate around the LCS and esports in general it is way way bigger of a sacrifice”, he added.

And given that teams are lowering their spending going into the next season, he thinks the organizations won’t be able to field strong rosters to compete at the international tournaments, which has been his goal ever since his debut in the LCS.

“It just reduces all of the important aspects that are outside of the roster like support staff, just resources for the players to improve and get better. And one of the really big things that was keeping NA, even sort of, in the conversation is well LCS spent a lot so we were able to attract good talent from other regions,” he continued.

Doublelift has one of the most successful careers in LoL esports history

Even though North America has often struggled with international results, Doublelift is one of the few LCS players full of trophies and achievements. Starting with CLG, and then bouncing between TSM and Team Liquid, the ADC legend counts eight LCS trophies and a runner-up result at the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational.

During the 2023 season, Doublelift came back to play on 100 Thieves with what was supposed to be a roster with great potential. Unfortunately, the results didn’t really come along and the team was eliminated in the first round of the LCS championship, after struggling the entire Summer Split.

Regardless, Doublelift said he’s quite satisfied with what he accomplished in LoL, outside of winning Worlds. He mentioned that the chances of him winning Worlds have slowly slipped away and that he’s finally stepping away from that ambitious goal.

Going forward, the ADC player will be focusing on full-time streaming and content creation. After Bjergsen’s retirement during the mid-season of 2023, the LCS lost yet another big name from its competitive scene.

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