Dota 2 veteran Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao called time on his gaming career. Envy, absent from competitive play since 2021, announced his retirement on Twitter, where his farewell message prompted heartwarming responses from Dota 2 fans.
Envy has been a popular figure in the Dota 2 community for many years. The Canadian core player became an incremental part of Dota 2 history through his risky playstyle. Despite being based in North America, Envy traveled worldwide playing for teams in different regions, reaching his career high in Europe, where he won a Major with Team Secret.
Envy gave up on the professional route in 2021, but he has been an active member of the Dota 2 community through his streams. He never could leave his competitive spirit behind, however, and his tryhard streams were a testament to that. Envy’s streams featured high-level gameplay, but given that he was always 100 percent focused on the game, he couldn’t keep most of his viewers engaged.
In a follow-up tweet, Envy explained that streaming wasn’t for him as he didn’t like reacting and talking on his stream. The player also shared that he had a new passion that he would “chase wholeheartedly,” giving some closure to his fans.
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While Envy’s Dota 2 history won’t need any introduction to fans who have been following the scene since the early 2010s, newer fans may want to take a trip down memory lane. In the earliest stages of his career, Envy was a part of the Alliance squad that won The International 2013, when they were first competing under the name No Tidehunter. Envy was kicked from this squad right before they went onto the Aegis winning run, which gave birth to the meme “Kick Envy, Win TI.”
It took a few years for Envy to bounce back, but when he did, he came back in a Major-winning form with Team Secret. Many assumed the Major win could be the turning point in Envy’s career. It did not come to be, however, as he ran into problems when it came to consistency. Envy never had a shortage of executing mind-blowing plays, but given their inconsistent nature, he continued to bounce between regions and teams for a good four years.
After a failed Cloud9 revival in 2020, Envy stepped away from the competitive scene in 2021, and now his Dota 2 journey as a whole has come to an end.
