Gaming
Esports
10 things you didn't know about League of Legends icon Faker
Most esports fans have heard of Faker, but here are 10 things you might not have known about Lol’s greatest ever player.
'The Unkillable Demon King'. 'The Greatest of All Time'. Lee Sang-hyeok has multiple nicknames, but 'Faker' is the one that everyone will remember him by. Since becoming a professional League of Legends player for T1 as a prodigy in 2013, Faker has since become the most successful player in history.
He’s so far the only player to win the World Championship on six occasions, and his individual accolades far outweigh anyone else in any region. If you follow League of Legends esports, then you probably know about Faker, but here are 10 things you might not have known about the game’s best player.
01
Not just a player
In 2020, Faker signed a new three-year deal with T1. Of course, it’s always good news when your star player says he’ll be sticking around, but along with that announcement came a much bigger one. Faker also became part-owner of T1 Entertainment & Sports.
Plus, he announced he was looking ahead beyond his playing career, saying he would be working with the leadership team of the organisation once he finally hangs up his mouse and keyboard. Whatever T1 end up looking like a few years down the line, they’ll have one of the most experienced and technically skilled players of all time behind them all the way.
02
Brand loyalty
A sixth Summoner's Cup for T1 at Worlds 2025
© Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
These days, Faker is no doubt synonymous with the T1 organisation, having been there for such a long time and bringing them so much success. No one has more loyalty to a team than Faker, as he has had the longest career with a single team out of anyone in history.
In 2023, he marked 10 years with the org, and signed on to remain until at least 2025. Since then, Faker has signed a new contract extension with T1, putting him behind his mouse and keyboard until 2029. That's four more years for Faker to continue building on his considerable legacy and to continue setting records – and to put him down as one of the – if not, the – longest serving esports players of all time.
03
Healthy eater
Some fans were confused after the 2015 World Championship finals. Faker had just won his second Worlds trophy, but for some reason one of the first things he did on stage was to wolf down a piece of broccoli. No, really.
He did it in response to a fan, who mentioned to him once that his hair looks like broccoli… apparently. That's since been actually immortalised inside of the game, with a 'broccoli head' emoji available for fans.
04
Multi-talented
With six World titles under his belt, Faker has proved he is the best midlaner around, but as Luka ‘Perkz’ Perkovic and Rasmus ‘Caps’ Winther proved during their role swapping antics at G2 Esports, being a midlaner doesn’t mean you can’t excel at another position as well.
Faker would pick the jungle if he was forced into another role, and indeed, you will often see him on stream venturing into the trees in solo queue if he can’t get his preferred position.
He's also the mid laner with the most number of unique champion picks, with 83 champions under his belt. Skills.
05
Other nicknames
You might have played against Faker and not even realised it
© Daebong Kim/Red Bull Content Pool
And what do junglers do best? They lurk in the bushes, picking the perfect time to strike when the opponents are unaware in their lanes.
You know him as the Unkillable Demon King, but one of Faker’s many alternate League of Legends accounts is called “Hide on bush,” and you’ll find variations of that name across multiple regions as well. There are probably a whole raft of players high up on the ladder who have played against Faker without even realising it.
06
Going skinless
Riot Games make a lot of money from people buying skins for their favourite League of Legends champion. But the game’s best-ever player hasn’t blown the bank on in-game cosmetics.
Faker almost never plays with a skin, preferring to let his flashy plays light up Summoner’s Rift, rather than the animations of the characters he’s playing – and that's despite having nine skins in-game that honour his gaming prowess, and one more surely on the way.
07
Multimedia star
Esports stars in Korea are already pretty famous, but Faker crossed over to the mainstream in 2018 when he appeared on variety/game show Hello Counselor. He seemed to take the jokes about him being a professional gamer in his stride, and even got to appear alongside Seulgi and Joy from the K-pop group Red Velvet, one of his favourite bands. He's since popped up on other shows too, but he prefers to let his actions on the Rift do the talking.
08
Study buddy
From school mates to Worlds rivals: Faker and Deft
© Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games
Fifty-one million people live in South Korea, so what are the odds that Faker would have gone to the same high school as one of League of Legends’ other top players? He attended school with Kim ‘Deft’ Hyuk-kyu, and they even joined the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) at the same time, in 2013.
They’ve ended up facing each other on Summoner’s Rift dozens of times over the years, including a 1v1 show match at the start of the 2023 season, and Deft lifted the Summoner's Cup with DRX in 2022, beating out Faker's squad in that year's World Championship final, but we’ve never found out who was the better student.
09
Bloodthirsty...
Faker with former team-mates Cuzz and Teddy
© Daebong Kim/Red Bull Content Pool
Not many players have been around as long as Faker, so it’s understandable he holds a number of records when it comes to League of Legends. The midlane maestro became the first player to win four Worlds titles in 2023, and at age 27, was the oldest player to win the tournament. And this year, aged 29, he has lifted six World Championship trophies – including the last three in a row.
Explore more gaming stories
10
...but not too bloodthirsty
However, for as bloodthirsty as Faker is, he’s only ever achieved two pentakills in pro play. Perhaps it’s because by now the enemy teams are scared to even go near him, but it’s still a surprising statistic.
The first came all the way back in 2015 in the LCK Champions 2015 Spring, as Faker tore up NaJin e-mFire on LeBlanc, making short work of the enemy team and finishing the game with a kill/death/assist ratio of 10/2/6.
10 years later, Faker would secure his second-ever pentakill, this time against DRX during Week 6 of the LCK Rounds 1-2. Playing as his signature Ahri, Faker laid waste to his opponents in quick succession, at first with a triple kill before completing the whole DRX roster. How fitting that the champions he picked for his commemorative 2024 Hall of Legends skins were Ahri and Leblanc – almost poetic.
