Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri retired Tuesday night, following his elimination from the WCS Europe Premier League round of 16. Widely considered the best non-Korean player of all time, Stephano had announced earlier in the year that he would be retiring from pro-gaming in August to resume his studies. True to his word, Stephano made WCS Season II his final StarCraft II tournament, and bowed out after a losses to MVP.Duckdeok and mouz.Lucifron eliminated him from the competition.
In an interview with ESL after his matches, Stephano left his final message to his fans.
Fantastic work, was genuinely feeling down when he properly anounced it on stream. I think there were still a couple of us who still thought he wouldn't follow through with it. Wish him all the best in whatever he does in the future.
One of my favorite players of all time to watch and cheer for. I'll really miss him in the SC2 scene.
I couldn't really accept that he was retiring until now, I always told myself he wouldn't retire even though I knew he would. Now that it's done and I saw his closing speech live with his family, it's not quite as sad as I thought it would be. It just felt like something that had to happy, and I'll be hoping that he has a great rest of his life.
A huge hole is left where stephano once stood. I thought i'd seen he might go to LoL (whether it was for fun or whatever) maybe youd be able to see him over there now and then.