Six days before his death, Lauri “Cyanide” Happonen returned to a League of Legends stage with the players he came up with. On 25 July he joined xPeke, YellOwStaR, Froggen and other veterans at an EU LCS Classic showmatch in France, part of Karmine Corp’s Roadtrip event. By every account he was planning what came next.

He died on 31 July. The news was first broken by Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat on 26 October, nearly three months later, after the paper obtained confirmation from Finland’s Digital and Population Data Services Agency. He was 31. No cause has been disclosed.

Happonen was 16 when Fnatic won the inaugural League of Legends World Championship in 2011. That record, youngest player ever to win Worlds, still stands.

‘One of the kindest, most genuine souls’

Fnatic was first to confirm the news publicly on Monday.

Read also: Putin presses FIFA and the rest to lift Russia’s remaining bans

“During his four-year spell at Fnatic, Cyanide made history as the youngest ever player to win Worlds at just 16,” the organization said. “He leaves behind a legacy that will never be forgotten.”

Former teammate YellOwStaR, who had been on stage with him in July, posted a longer tribute.

“Lauri was so much more than a teammate. He was one of the kindest, most genuine souls I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.”

YellOwStaR said Happonen had been “still full of dreams, plans, and projects for the future” when they met at the reunion.

Read also: Kylian Mbappé handed brutal Ballon d’Or verdict in stunning AI prediction

A second loss from the 2011 roster

Happonen is the second member of Fnatic’s 2011 championship team to die inside 18 months. Maciej “Shushei” Ratuszniak, the Polish mid-laner on that roster, died in April 2025 at the age of 36 after a battle with cancer.

The team they played on was the first roster in League of Legends history to be called world champions. Competitive LoL had almost no professional infrastructure at the time, and the tournament they won in 2011 is widely regarded as the point the discipline began to exist as a career.

Happonen’s own playing career ended in 2015. The four years at Fnatic that preceded it included a 2013 Worlds semi-final run and European titles in 2013 and 2014, and he was credited with pioneering Gangplank in the jungle role during Fnatic’s European dominance. He streamed for several years after retiring before largely stepping back from public view.

Finnish authorities have released no further details on the circumstances of his death.

Read also: Harry Kane’s £400,000-a-week Bayern salary is just the beginning of his growing empire

May he rest in peace.

Read also: Ex referee chief: ‘It should have been a penalty’