jL on taking a break: "There weren't a lot of conditions that would have made me stay"

The Lithuanian spoke about the addition of makazze, how NAVI might slot him into jL's roles, and spoke about roster changes on HLTV Confirmed.

Fresh from the announcement of his break from competition, Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius joined Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill and Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda on the latest episode of HLTV Confirmed to discuss his plans moving forward, Natus Vincere's addition of Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri, recent roster moves, and more.

The Lithuanian began by elaborating on the reasoning for his break, explaining he wanted more time to explore other things in life, make time for his wife, and start a family without the constant time commitment required in tier-one.

"Tier-one requires a lot of sacrifice, a lot of hours," jL explained. If you actually want to be the best, or one of the best, it requires, I don't know, 12 hours per day. And if you're not doing 12 hours per day you're doing something wrong and you're not on top of your game.

"I just wanted to live a little. I wanted to try drifting, content creation, I want to spend time with my wife, I want to make a family. Those are the main things."

The Lithuanian was asked if there were any conditions under which he would have continued playing, to which he said there was one but said he wouldn't elaborate. When asked whether it was winning the Austin Major, jL was quick to respond.

"I feel like if we won the Major, I would have just fucking retired (laughs). Okay, that was a bit of an overexaggeration, but... yeah, there weren't a lot of conditions that would have made me stay."

jL then discussed his plans for content creation, ranging from YouTube videos to streaming, before the conversation turned to makazze, his replacement on Natus Vincere.

"The things that I know are not very nice," jL began when asked whether he knows much about makazze. "I saw a tweet about him on Twitter. I didn't speak to him, I don't know much about him, but the only thing I know is that he shouted at some randoms on FACEIT.

"I know he's a good player, I played against him many times and he's shooting very well, but other than that I don't know much about him."

The panel then discussed how makazze would slot into the team, considering he overlaps roles with both jL and Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan, to which jL said he had no insight but speculated that the Kosovar would take most of jL's roles rather than map control ones.

The Lithuanian added that this initial period would be used to learn from iM and then take over his roles in the future, leaving the Romanian free to move to jL's roles instead.

jL was also asked about Falcons and their addition of Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin, to which he expressed concern about the balance of roles.

"The role clash, that's first, and I don't feel like their team has a good balance of performance players and team players, like synergy. But okay, maybe they will be a rare example of not needing team synergy to win tournaments and win games, maybe they'll just have enough firepower and star players to win games."

Later in the show, jL gave his thoughts on recent roster moves from G2, Spirit, and FURIA, Natus Vincere's attempt to target David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský, as well as touched on recent news alongside the panel. You can watch the whole episode here.