Li Peinan, China’s first “StarCraft II” world champion, shared a picture on Bilibili in the early hours of January 7th, Beijing time.
The picture showed that he posted a WeChat Moment on the 6th with the content “Starting a new chapter in life,” which also means that player Li Peinan announced his retirement.
In February 2023, Li Peinan created a miracle hailed as “one of the biggest upsets in ‘StarCraft II’ history” at the then highest-level official esports event IEM Katowice for “StarCraft II”:
With a pre-tournament prediction of only a 0.37% chance of winning by foreign media, he fought his way through and ultimately defeated his opponent Maru 4:1 in the final, winning China’s first “StarCraft II” world championship and writing a new history.
Referring to the statement by Sun Yifeng, a commentator closely related to Li Peinan, Li Peinan made the decision to retire because “StarCraft II” professional tournaments will continue to face high uncertainty in the foreseeable future:
The current highest prize money event for “StarCraft II,” the EWC Esports World Cup, has not yet confirmed whether there will be this event in 2025; at the same time, even if the Esports World Cup includes “StarCraft II” this year, whether the event will continue to be held in 2026 is still an unknown.
