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Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black announced his retirement from the competitive League of Legends on January 25th, the day before the start of the LCS at 5:25 PM ET. The news, however, does not a total shock as Aphromoo has spent the past few years with frequent team changes and hadn’t been signed to a team since leaving FlyQuest in December of last year.
The announcement came the day before the start of the LCS season, which started its first week of 2023 league play today. The LCS broadcast has made multiple changes to the broadcast format, including the overall feel of the show and the live broadcast schedule. In an attempt to bring more viewers to the North American League, the LCS has moved matches to Thursdays and Fridays, with the occasional Wednesday interspersed throughout the season.
Aphromoo’s History in League
Aphromoo started playing competitive League of Legends back in 2011, but fans will remember his burst onto the scene with Counter Logic Gaming back in 2013. For over four years, Aphromoo was the face of CLG along with lane mate Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, who together made up the “Rush Hour” duo who would captivate and take the North American League scene until Doublelift’s move to TSM in 2015.
In December 2017, it was announced that Aphromoo would be the support player for the debut 100 Thieves roster as the North American Pro League of Legends scene was making the change to a franchise league model. Aphromoo would be the face of the franchise for the young esports organization helping them make multiple international appearances in his short two-year stint with the team.
Aphromoo would spend the 2020 and 2021 competitive seasons with Dignitas. The team would struggle to find the top half of the standings in those two years. Aphromoo would then play the 2022 season with FlyQuest, who also struggled to compete with the top half of the league.
The fact that Aphromoo hasn’t played on a top team since 2018 will leave some to forget the peaks that he had in his career. One could argue that in a sport as young as League of Legends, Aphromoo is one of the only examples of a player having a career timeline comparable in duration and peaks of ability to that of a professional athlete in a traditional sport. Aphromoo may not have ended his career on top, but he still was on a squad that gave North America it’s best international showing, one that no team is close to replicating and one that continues to live on in fans’ minds.
LCS Results and Schedule
The North American League of Legends scene still lives on, even without the beloved Aphromoo. With the first day of matches in the books, fans are already looking forwards to tomorrow’s slate of LCS matches as we enter the start of the LCS Season. All times are listed in ET and are listed by the league as approximations.
January 26 Results:
100 Thieves: 0, Cloud9: 1
Evil Geniuses: 1, Golden Guardians: 0
Team Liquid: 0, FlyQuest: 1
Counter Logic Gaming: 1, Dignitas: 0
Team Solo Mid: 1, Immortals: 0
January 27 Schedule:
Counter Logic Gaming vs Evil Geniuses 5 PM
Golden Guardians vs Cloud9 6 PM
Team Solo Mid vs Team Liquid 7 PM
100 Thieves vs Immortals 8 PM
FlyQuest vs Dignitas 9 PM