Duckdeok with the WCS Europe Season 2 trophy. Photo by: ESL
WCS Europe Season 2 champion and MVP Protoss player Kim "duckdeok" Kyeong Deok tweeted that he'll be retiring from professional StarCraft 2. This announcement comes three months after Duckdeok took the $20,000 in the ESL Cologne studio.
Originally known as Finale, Duckdeok emerged on the scene back in December 2010 as a member of team MVP and has stayed with the brand since. For the better part of his career, Duckdeok was known as a Code A player and by the summer of 2013 his best accomplishment remained a top 16 finish at NASL 4.
After WCS 2013 was announced, Duckdeok made the switch to WCS Europe. His first game in the Challenger league ended being a 0-2 loss to HasuObs but finishing behind Bunny in the group stage eventually sent Duckdeok up to next season's Premier League.
Once there, Duckdeok started slicing through crowd favorites. He eliminated Dayshi and DIMAGA in the Ro32, took down Stephano and Lucifron in the Ro16, 3-1'd Naniwa in the quarter finals and ousted Grubby 3-2 in the semis. A close seven-game series against SK's poster boy MC finally decided the tournament in his favor and gave him a $20,000 check.
Duckdeok never managed to reach another grand final since but enjoyed decent results nonetheless, finishing fifth in WCS Europe Season 3 and top eight in the global finals. Despite a more fruitful year compared to his last few, however, Duckdeok said on Twitter that he's decided to quit professional StarCraft 2. While no specific reason as to why is given, Duckdeok's decision might be because of MVP's commitment to Proleague which will in turn ground the Protoss player on Korean soil, making it too costly for him to travel between Germany and Korea and juggle Proleague/WCS duties.
I have decided to retire S2
— ??? (@positive2duck) December 12, 2013
