Evil Geniuses have announced that Matt "Warden" Dickens has decided to retire from gaming.

Rumours about his retirement had started to circulate before the WCG 2009 finals, but today it was confirmed by EG that Warden has left the team and is quitting competitive gaming altogether.

A former Green Berets player, Warden rose to prominence with the Complexity Syndicate culminating in a win at ESWC 2005, before making the switch to CS:S for the CGS. Since the break down of CGS he has been playing 1.6 for Evil Geniuses whose best result to date was a win at GameGune Mexico. His gaming career came to an end as EG were eliminated from WCG 2009 in the first round of the brackets by mTw yesterday.

Long time teammate, Danny "fRoD" Montaner told myEG.net

It's hard thinking of not playing without Matt because throughout my career, I have grown as a person and as a player with his help. I know the success we achieved as teammates would never have come or happened without him being a part of the team we had

Tyler "Storm" Wood added:

His presence on the team both in and out of the game is something that's irreplaceable.

This leaves Evil Geniuses as:

Danny "fRoD" Montaner
Tyler "Storm" Wood
Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert
Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen

News on his replacement is expected in the coming days once the team have returned from China.