professional starcraft ii commentator didnt start following the competitive starcraft scene until late 2011 when brood war was in decline still he understood jaedongs draw i really didnt know a whole lot about jaedong and other brood war pro gamers obviously you hear the legends and that was probably the one thing when they came over it was like ok well everyones always talking about jaedong nathanias said to espn i basically knew he was insanely good obviously a very handsome guy once i saw pictures of him and coming over to starcraft ii i just expected him to be really good jaedong was undeniably a fan favorite and excited about the game but he wasnt as dominant as he had been in brood war his starcraft ii career highlight was the world championship series global finals at blizzcon in 2013 where in the round of 8 he defeated dongjun dear baek who was fresh off of a firstplace finish at the wcs season 3 finals he ultimately took second to yoojin sos kim by late summer of 2015 jaedong was slipping he returned to south korea to compete in the first season of the 2016 global starcraft ii league south koreas premier individual starcraft ii league but he didnt qualify for the main event after february he more or less stopped playing in tournaments the writing was on the wall we knew for a good chunk of time that it was coming like probably like six months or something beforehand we knew that jaedong wasnt going to be playing anymore and it was just the passion for the game was not there like it was with brood war may said a plausible ending on nov 1 2016 evil geniuses announced jaedongs retirement the announcement on his personal twitter account immediately had hundreds of replies from esports professionals and fans alike expressing sadness and wishing him luck it felt like the last straw in a traumatic year for starcraft ii other esports like counterstrike league of legends and dota 2 had become far more popular globally which had pushed starcraft ii to the sidelines at international multigame esports events like intel extreme masters and dreamhack the huge match fixing scandal of seunghyun life lee had tarnished the games reputation the august kespa proleague a foundational pillar of the brood war and then starcraft ii scene had been shut down after 14 years and most of its teams disbanded their starcraft ii rosters this left many top south korean players teamless in a system which was founded on the ability of teams to provide for manage and develop their players at blizzcon 2016 last november once again host to starcraft iis annual capstone championship jaedong spoke to espn in an interview about his decision ive been a pro for over 10 years ive come to a turning point in my life where i feel like i need to take a break from the professional scene he said its not that