British League of Legends pro jungler and caster Marc ‘Caedrel’ Lamont has announced he is stepping back from pro play.
Speaking in a heartfelt video on his Twitter page, Caedrel said his time playing as a pro has been an ‘unbelievable’ experience and, while he wasn’t able ‘to achieve the results’ for UK organisation Excel Esports that he expected, he’s found a lot of happiness in his life.
Caedrel recently began casting on the LEC and Worlds desks and now his career is taking another turn.
He said: “I think now is a good time for me to step away from being a pro player. Although it’s been something I’ve loved so much as a kid, I feel like it’s really difficult to live a life and achieve lots of personal goals and desires when you have this restraint of eyes on you and pressures to perform.
“Someone very close to me said if I spend my life looking through open doors at all these things I want to do, I’ll just end up living life in the hallway. So I’m taking a big jump here and moving into sort of like a freelance role.
“Thank you for the support you’ve given me over the years. I hope you can continue to support me wherever I go.”
Caedrel did say he’ll still be playing solo queue in League of Legends.
Excel Esports and the org’s co-founder Kieran Holmes-Darby thanked Caedrel for his services and wished him well.
On the video, Caedrel commented: “Thank you Excel for trusting me 2 years ago. Saddens me a lot to leave, didn’t bring them the success I’d hoped for when I started this journey but I’m grateful for everything they’ve done for me. Best of luck moving forwards, this video brought a tear to my eye.”
Caedrel has had an interesting background in professional League of Legends.
He largely bypassed the UK tournaments, playing for the likes of Giants, Renegades, Schalke and H2K, before joining Excel in late 2018.
Since joining the LEC, Excel have always aimed to reach the LEC playoffs and qualify for Worlds, but have fallen short so far.
Earlier this year, Excel narrowly missed out on an LEC playoffs spot to Schalke, who completed an unusual ‘miracle run’.
Excel are this month expected to announce some changes, as hinted by this tweet.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
