Inven reported today that the highly accomplished Terran of Team Prime Lee "MarineKing" Jung Hoon will leave StarCraft 2 to purse a career in League of Legends. MKP will start his career as the sixth player of Prime's LoL team.
Breaking out on the StarCraft 2 scene in late 2010, MarineKing impressed the StarCraft 2 fan base by displaying uncanny meticulousness in his micro-management which helped him reach the grand finals of the 2012 GSL Open Season 2. A 3:4 loss to NesTea in the grand final would start a tradition that would place MarineKing as second in several more big tournaments, including 2010 GomTV All Stars Invitational, 2011 Code S January and 2011 GSL World Championship. Known as the King of Kong in StarCraft 2 and often compared to the legendary BroodWar runner-up king Yellow, it was not until the February of 2012 and the MLG Winter Arena that MarineKing would win his first gold medal at a premier tournament.
MarineKing's momentum at the start of 2012 carried him to back-to-back MLG championships as he took the Winter Championship as well, a success which he followed up with a bronze medal from the MLG Spring Championship in the same year. Since the summer of 2012, however, MarineKing has been a victim of deteriorating performances with the small exception of the fourth place at Iron Squid II. The spring of 2013 saw MarineKing lose his Code S spot and fall down Code A, which completed his disappearance from the radar.
With that in mind, the news of MarineKing's retirement from StarCraft 2 comes almost as no surprise. According to Inven, MKP has been gearing for his departure from SC2 and his transition to LoL three months ago. Currently ranked Diamond on the League of Legends ladder, MarineKing hopes to repeat his SC2 results in the new games as well and he will try to do that as the sixth member of Prime's LoL team "Optimus".
According to Prime's supervisor Gerrard, MKP's experience as a professional gamer could influence his amateur team-mates.
Since MarineKing was such a prestigious player for the SC2 scene, there will be a lot of anticipations for him regarding his switch. I expect MarineKing to become a great player in no time at all. He's lived the life of a professional gamer for quite some time now so I'm sure he'll have an influence on his amateur teammates as well.
Photo: ThisIsGame
