steel announces retirement: "Competition stopped being fun for me"

The 30-year-old Brazilian will focus on streaming and content creation.

Former Immortals and Liquid player Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes announced Thursday that he was retiring from competition after a career that spanned over a decade and included one Major final appearance.

In an interview with Dust2 Brasil, the 30-year-old spoke of his frustration about being unable to return to the highest level of competition and pointed to his 18-month tenure with Case, during which he barely got to play on LAN, as the worst period of his career.

"I have effectively retired from competition," he said. "I have no intention of competing, unless it is in a way that lets me create content like I have been doing for A FUNDAÇÃO. But truly coming back, hardcore, practicing daily, I have no intention of doing it.

"I lost the desire to compete. Competition stopped being fun for me, like it was during my time with Immortals and Liquid, when we’d often go to LAN events and compete in tier-one tournaments. After I lost that, it stopped being as cool as it used to be. I really tried, but there came a moment when I realized it was not cool anymore. A lot of frustration, a lot of bad feelings, so I have decided to focus on livestreaming."

steel came through the CS:Source scene in the late 2000s and transitioned to CS:GO following the game’s launch. He was part of ProGaming.TD, the first Brazilian team to attend an international CS:GO event.

His career reached its zenith in 2017, when he helped Immortals to the grand final of PGL Major Krakow. The team ended up falling apart later that year, with steel signing with Liquid, with whom he would win cs_summit 2 and reach the semi-finals of IEM Katowice 2018.

But his stint with the North American organization lasted only five months. steel returned Luminosity, whom he had represented in 2015, before moving to Madrid to play for Movistar Riders. After two years with the Spanish organization, he returned to his roots and played for Brazilian teams Case and Flamengo.

"I think I had an incredible career," steel said. "I achieved incredible things, and I am very satisfied with my career. But I'll always have the feeling that I could have done so much more. There's no doubt about that."