LCS legend Santorin retires after lackluster 2023 with Dignitas

Veteran European and LCS champion Lucas ‘Santorin’ Larsen announced his retirement before the 2024 LCS season.

Santorin has played professional League of Legends since 2013, giving him a career that has spanned nearly a decade. Though he made a name for himself in Europe, his career really took off in the early days of the LA LCS in 2014. Alongside big names like Bjergsen and Dyrus, Santorin found spectacular domestic success on TSM and put himself on the map as one of the best in 2015.

Though his career has certainly been turbulent with some real low points, he’s also had some of the best domestic finishes out of any jungler and stayed consistently strong for several years.

Though a brief break he took due to a health scare in sidetracked him a bit, he was viewed as one of the best junglers in NA since near the beginning of the LCS. As time went on however, the dominance that he once had began to fizzle out. Dignitas was a particularly rough patch for him, and it’d end up being the last team he ever played on.

Dignitas becomes the final team for Santorin

In 2023 Santorin was let go from Liquid and left to explore his opinions. He was picked up by Dignitas who tried to form a “super team” with himself, İrfan ‘Armut’ Tükek and Nicolas ‘Jensen’ Jensen.

Dignitas fell way below expectations in Spring of 2023 with the team placing dead last with three wins and fifteen losses. The team was able to make a comeback in Summer with seven wins and eleven losses but, ultimately, they were booted out of playoffs.

Robert Paul/Riot Games

After two crushing seasons on Dignitas, Santorin has decided to step down from professional play and instead pursue streaming full time. In his retirement speech, he made a heartfelt statement to fans, hoping that they would support him in this new journey with full-time streaming.

This is bittersweet to write and feels a bit surreal, but I have decided to retire from professional play.

I'll never forget my first year in the LCS at Worlds when Dyrus decided to retire and announce it publicly on stage after we were knocked out. His decision shocked me…

— Lucas Larsen (@Santorin) October 8, 2023

Santorin’s success will be remembered within the community, and his legacy as one of the best junglers in the LCS shall remain despite the lackluster ending to his career.