League of Legends pro Neon retires after EMEA Masters elimination

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 18/06/2025

European ADC Matúš ‘Neon’ Jakubčík has retired from competitive League of Legends at the age of 26.

The Slovakian has had a successful career with multiple years in the LEC and a European Masters trophy to his name.

Neon took to social media to announce his retirement and future focus on streaming:

“Retiring from professional play. Forever grateful for the memories, opportunities and support I’ve been given.

“Moving on, I’ll be focusing on something that I’ve wanted to pursue for a long time – making content & streaming. See you on the other side!”

The news comes after he was eliminated from EMEA Masters Spring 2025 with Misa Esports.

The Turkish second seeds had dominated Czechia’s eSuba 3-0 in Round 1.

But then lost in the Quarterfinals 3-1 to French LFL champions BK ROG Esports.

BK ROG will now face the NLC’s Los Ratones who are going strong in EMEA Masters after defeating NORD Esports.

Neon’s League of Legends career

Neon began competing as early as 16 years old back in 2015.

He won Challenge France 2017 with Millenium which led them to the Quarterfinals of the first ever European Masters in 2018.

The following year would then be the biggest of his career.

Neon started 2019 by becoming a European Masters champion with Misfits Premier, dominating SK Gaming Prime 3-0 in the final.

Neon picked up the most MVP awards at that tournament, picking up the individual award five times.

Meanwhile, Misfits Gaming’s primary roster failed to qualify for the first ever LEC Playoffs.

This prompted the organisation to promote the entire academy team that won European Masters to form a 10-man roster.

This gave Neon his LEC and Tier 1 debut but at the end of the year, he was suspended for toxic behaviour in soloqueue and kicked by Misfits.

Once the suspension was over, Neon joined FC Schalke Evolution, the academy esports team of the German football club.

Neon would then go on to join Schalke’s LEC team and in 2021 was part of the infamous Schalke miracle run.

The team were rock bottom in the league with a 1-10 record.

They then started a win-streak which put the team on a 5-10 record, but they were still last heading into the final week.

The team continued that win-streak to seven games, winning all three of their Week 8 matches to finish 8-10.

This included wins over Fnatic and MAD Lions with the latter competing to finish first in the standings.

Somehow, Schalke went from last place to qualifying for the LEC Playoffs and a chance at Worlds.

While Schalke didn’t qualify and Neon never made it to an international event, he continued playing at a high level.

He had another LEC stint with Misfits and then on Team Vitality before competing in Germany and Turkey to round out his career.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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