Japanese LoL Esports Icon Evi Announces Retirement

Shunsuke ‘Evi’ Murase has announced his retirement from professional League of Legends after an 11-year career.

Evi is considered the greatest Japanese LoL player ever, having won 12 LJL titles and attended six World Championships.

He was also the first-ever Japanese pro to be imported to another region after competing in the LEC with Team Heretics in 2023.

The former toplaner hopes he can continue to support the Japanese LoL scene and pass on the skills and experience he’s built up to the younger players.

The competitive LoL community was quick to congratulate Evi on his historic career.

LoL caster Alex ‘Nymaera’ Hapgood watched much of Evi’s career in the LJL and spoke of how important a figure he was for the smaller scene:

“The greatest Japanese player ever, what a wonderful career he had. We used to have a saying: ‘if you don’t have Evi, you don’t win LJL!’

“While his move to LEC didn’t work out how he wanted, being a Japanese player in a Tier 1 region was genuinely inspiring for Japanese players, doubly managing to do so whilst being a father and playing on the other side of the world.”

The LEC’s Team Heretics also paid tribute, thanking Evi for “all the memories and everything you brought to our team and to the game.”

Fellow LoL icon and his former Heretics teammate Marcin ‘Jankos’ Jankowski hailed Evi as a legend and the toplaner then thanked him for the memories in Germany, including riding an e-scooter through snowy Berlin.

And the LCP, where Japanese teams now compete alongside other Asia Pacific teams, heralded Evi as “a paragon of Japanese LoL, and a beacon of endless positivity.”

Evi himself recalled some of his favourite moments in his career, including defeating Cloud9 to take Detonation FocusMe to the Worlds Group Stages and pushing DWG KIA to the limit at MSI 2021.

What was your favourite memory of Evi’s career? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.

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