Singaporean Dota 2 veteran Wong “NutZ” Jeng Yih has officially announced his retirement after more than nine years of competition in the game.
His decision comes after spending the last seven months playing with random teams and failing to qualify for the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit.
After playing in the initial qualifier for the Southeast Asia DPC regional league with several former teammates on the QueenSurf stack and failing to qualify, he took a step back and reevaluated his position in the competitive scene. Now, three months later, he has decided to retire and pursue other ventures.
“It is time for me to call it quits from competing in tournaments,” NutZ said. “It is really difficult to let go of something you’ve committed your whole youth for. I’ve pondered about it for several months and finally decided it is time to move on. The new generation of players is already here. They are the ones who are willing to dedicate their time and are more hungry to show their worth in the scene.”
NutZ spent his entire career playing for various SEO organizations, including a two year stint with MVP HOT6ix and MVP Phoenix, including a seventh place finish at The International 2015. Prior to stack hopping, he spent more than a year competing with Reality Rift before the organization shut down its Dota division last September.
Throughout his years of competing, NutZ only made it to that single TI with MVP Phoenix. But he would always strive to improve himself in hopes of winning the biggest tournament and hoisting the Aegis as one of the best players in the world.
However, over the last several months he found that the end goal had faded and was no longer driving him to keep going.
“Lifting that Aegis was everything to me,” NutZ said. “I truly felt it was an achievable goal not too far from where I was as long as I gathered the right talents and worked hard towards it together. As time goes by, it starts fading and it has come to a point where it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore except for the potential monetary benefits from winning it.”
NutZ will now work on finding something new to chase while also looking into other esports projects going on in Singapore. He doesn’t have any specific plans, but he thanked all of his fans that have supported him since the original Dota and promised to remain active in supporting new players and past teammates in the future.
