In a post-game interview with Jankos following Team Heretics’ elimination from Playoffs and Season Finals contention, Jankos claimed that he’s not sure if he still plans on playing next year. Given that he was considering retirement at the start of 2023, there’s a real chance he bows out of pro play.
Marcin ‘Jankos’ Jankowski’s season with Team Heretics has been a tragic one. And it’s not because Jankos is playing poorly, either; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Jankos has been pulling some of the best individual performances in the league despite the team having a rough season.
Despite having a split that saw him individually outplaying, outpacing, outfarming, and outsmarting every other jungler in the LEC and Team Heretics gradually getting better over the course of the year, Jankos won’t be present at Worlds 2023.
In a post-game broadcast interview following their 1-3 loss to Fnatic, Jankos claimed that he may not play next year and is considering retirement.
LEC legend Jankos considers stepping down from pro play
Jankos is a man of many talents. Though he’s consistently been on top of Europe as one of the region’s best junglers, he also has a track record of being a strong broadcast presence and a massive social media following.
Retiring as a pro player wouldn’t mean scrambling to find a new job or position within the scene. It’s more likely that it’d be a matter of who gives him the best offer considering how much he brings to the table. Even when he considered retiring at the start of 2023, he could have easily remained a content creator and done well for himself.
This makes Jankos’ retirement all the more likely considering just how sad he seemed following Team Heretics’ elimination. Though he had heaps of praise for his teammates and their improvement over the course of the year, he wasn’t so optimistic about his own career.
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“It really sucks that we cannot go forward or we cannot try again, or we had maybe not enough time and we’d never know what would happen. But we’re out now, right? I really hope my team takes the lessons from this year and they don’t forget them going into next year.”
This led to a conversation about Jankos’ future in the league, one where he revealed that he isn’t too sure if he’ll be playing next year.
“I don’t really know what I want to do right now. I didn’t plan on losing, so I didn’t plan on my future. I don’t know how much I have left, I’m not sure if I’m going to be competing next year or not. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? I have a lot of time to reflect.”
This all culminated in a moment where the broadcast team and remaining audience tried to reassure Jankos and, other than a brief laugh, it seemed that his incredibly sad demeanor wasn’t broken despite people cheering him on.
All he had to say following that interview was, “What a f***ing sad ending”.
What a fucking sad ending
— Marcin Jankowski (@JankosLoL) July 28, 2023
Whether or not Jankos keeps competing after this season remains to be seen. However, even if he does retire, it won’t take away from what has been a monumental career.