Greyy leaves Paris Eternal and retires as Overwatch pro
Overwatch League flex support Luís “Greyy” Perestrelo has announced he is leaving Paris Eternal and retireing from professional Overwatch due to mental health concerns and loss of passion of the game.
The 26-year-old Portuguese flex support has officially retired from the Overwatch professional scene this Thursday, April 7, ending his three-year-long career as an Overwatch pro, which began in early 2017.
Greyy joined Paris Eternal in November 2018, shortly after the team was formed, and has remained the sole representative of Portugal in the Overwatch League since. He also played for his nation in the Overwatch World Cup in 2017 and 2019, where he finished fifth-sixth and 21-28th respectively.
With Paris Eternal, Greyy finished 14th in 2019 season with an underwhelming 11-17 record, which sat them two wins short of entering the playoffs. Throughout the season, Greyy also picked up three MVP awards for his performance, which was the most out of entire Eternals roster besides Terence "SoOn" Tarlier.
In his Twitter announcement, Greyy spoke how he was thinking about this decision for a while but through time, he realised he lost his passion for the game he once loved and enjoyed. Although Greyy refrained from revealing what caused him to lose his passion, the Portuguese support explained that he felt like he was forcing himself to play the game and to have fun, which eventually took a toll on his mental health.
Greyy also talked about how he wanted to make this move before, but due to Damien "HyP" Souville's retirement, he felt like leaving the team would put then in an unenviable spot, as they would struggle to find a replacement for him due to the COVID-19 situation.
"This is something I've been thinking about for a very long time. I used to be incredibly passionate about the game, but this passion hasn't been there for a long time now," said Greyy.
"There are many reasons that resulted in this, I don't really want to go into detail listing those. I kept trying to force myself to enjoy it, to have fun, to practise and do my best for my teammates, but my mental health was hard tanking and this was for sure the correct way to go.
“The only reason I didn't do this move earlier is because with Hyp's retirement it left me in a weird spot because I was concerned my team wouldn't be able to easily find a replacement amidst COVID-19, so I kept practising and playing with them for some time after telling staff that this is what I wanted to do."
With his retirement, Greyy has become only one of many Overwatch players, who left the scene after losing the passion for the game, with some deciding to transition to VALORANT, while others deciding to go on an indefinite break from being involved in the competitive CS:GO scene.
Greyy has started his Overwatch career in February 2017 with Bench Boys' roster, which got picked up by Laser Kittenz in March, the same year. With Laser Kittenz, Greyy won Rivalcade Weekly #6 Europe, finished fourth at HND Overwatch Invitational I and seventh-eighth at Overwatch PIT Championship – Europe Season 1. In July 2017, Greyy also claimed a top-four finish at Overwatch Contenders 2017 Season Zero: Europe, before the whole roster got picked up by Cloud9 EU in August.
Greyy's last stop before joining Paris Eternal was GG Esports Academy, who signed him in February 2018. With GGEA (before known as OpTic), Greyy pocketed a third-fourth place finish at Overwatch Contenders 2018 Season 1: North America and later in July ninth-10th at Overwatch Contenders 2018 Season 2: North America.
As Greyy's replacement, Paris Eternal signed Kwon “Fielder” Joon from GC Busan Wave at the start of May. Fielder has played his first match for Eternals last week, although he had to do it from Korea, resulting in extremely high ping. Despite the huge obstacle, however, Fielder performed well, which earned him a permanent spot in the team and made Greyy's departure easier.
Paris Eternal's are now set to clash with Los Angeles Gladiators on Saturday, May 9, in Week 14 of Overwatch League, where Eternal will chase their sixth win of the season.
