Ablazeolive Retires From Professional League of Legends

The Immortals and Golden Guardians midlaner called time on his career, and will look towards new opportunities.

Nicholas Antonio Abbott, otherwise known as Ablazeolive has said goodbye to professional League of Legends on March 21^st. The 24-year-old has stated that competing in the LCS has taken too much time away from other aspects of his life, and he wants to stop putting everything on hold for the sake of esports.

Ablazeolive has started competing at the end of 2015, when he joined Mentality Gaming in September. After 3 months with the team, he joined Zenith Esports, then went on to play for smaller orgs such as Nova eSports and Arsenal, before landing a spot in the Academy team of TSM. He had a steadily improving performance with the youngsters of TSM: while he only finished 6^th and 7^th in the NA Academy 2018 Spring and Summer seasons, he and his team got a second place next year during the Spring Split, and won the NA Academy 2019 Spring Playoffs. After spending the summer with TSM Academy, he switched to Golden Guardians Academy, but he couldn’t replicate his success on the team.

Nevertheless, he got promoted to the main roster of the Guardians before the start of the 2021 LCS season. Ablazeolive and co. went on to get top 8 in the LCS 2021 Lock In, but finished last place during Spring. However, they bounced back in Summer just enough to qualify for playoffs, but they got knocked out instantly. They had a better run in the 2022 LCS season, making playoffs in both Spring and Summer, but never getting through the first round. At the end of last year, Ablazeolive left Golden Guardians to join Immortals, but found little success with the team, which finished 9^th place after only managing to secure 4 wins. However, Ablazeolive wasn’t around to finish the split, as he was benched at the end of February.

What the future holds for Ablazeolive

Now, after almost a month of inactivity, Ablazeolive stepped forward to announce his retirement from professional play. In a Twitter post, the Canadian explained that competing at the highest level took up too much of his life, stunting essential things which he doesn’t want to put off any further. He thanked all his fans for the last 8 years, and said that this part of his life is over. However, he doesn’t want to stay away from League of Legends too long, as he would like to become a coach, caster or streamer, or go back to school. He’s also staying open to any new adventures that may arise. He thanked Immortals and all his previous teammates and coaches before hanging the mouse and keyboard up for good.

I have decided to retire from competitive League of Legends.

Read: https://t.co/3Eahnideym

— Ablazeolive (@Ablazeolive) March 20, 2023

Ablazeolive wouldn’t be the first ex-pro to join the talents of the official regional championships. In the LEC, Marc “Caedrel” Lamont became one of the best color-casters after retiring from proplay, and Eric “Treatz” Wessén has become a regular guest in the 2023 Winter and Spring Splits. Over in Korea, MSI-winner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon joined the LCK Analyst Desk at the start of this year. Becoming a caster on analyst may as well be the best course for Ablazeolive, as Clayton “CaptainFlowers” Raines has commented on his retirement, saying that he would be more than willing to practice with the young ex-midlaner.