XigN⁠ takes break from competing for military service

27-year-old South Korean esports athlete Hyun-Pyo "⁠XigN⁠" Lee announced his temporary retirement from the Counter-Strike 2 pro scene to start mandatory in his country military service. The player's statement was published via X social media.

I played CS for 9 years non-stop as a pro player, now it's time to rest and refresh. Well, I still wanna play CS more, but as you know as a Korean I must go serving for National Military Service.
It's kinda sad, because I felt I was starting to understand CS2 more, and my performance was good lately.

I won quite a lot of Asia tournaments, but I did not manage to attend a single major as a player during my career, this situation is unsatisfactory but I leave no regrets behind as I had tried my best throughout it all.

I would like to thank all the teammates I played with. I always learned a lot from them, and I really appreciate all the fans who have supported me so far. Also thank you to AE & investors who supported us so that we could focus entirely on CS.

I will comeback stronger, Thank you!

XigN began competing on the Counter-Strike pro scene in 2015. Over the course of his career, he has earned almost $100,000 in prize money. Lee's last team was Alter Ego, which he represented since August of this year.

Alter Ego placed 7th-8th at the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Asia RMR and did not qualify for the Shanghai Counter-Strike 2 Major. The team currently occupies 98th place in HLTV ranking.

 Alter Ego are now:

 Hansel "⁠BnTeT⁠" Ferdinand
 WingHei "⁠Freeman⁠" Cheung
 Jane "⁠aidKiT⁠" Apostoloski
 Gan-Erdene "⁠dobu⁠" Batbold (loan)

 Andrew "⁠bali⁠" Joseph (coach)

Origin: x.com