Faker: The Complete Career, 14 Years On The Throne
Photo Credit: T1/red bull
Faker turned 30 on May 7. Thirteen years after his professional debut, he is still in the same seat: T1’s starting mid laner, the only team he has ever played for, and the reigning world champion.
No player in League of Legends history has held a single seat at the top for this long, and no one is close.
In his career he already won six World Championships, two MSI titles, ten LCK trophies, two Finals MVPs, first at Worlds 2024, eight years after the first one in 2016 and over 500 career kills at Worlds with his contract still running through 2029.
Thirteen years separate the boy who joined SK Telecom T1's second team in February 2013 from the captain who lifted the Summoner's Cup last fall. The arc has had ruptures but the through-line never broke. Faker is still the centre of the LCK, of T1 and of course of League of Legends Esport.
I — The recruitment (2012–2013)
Lee Sang-hyeok was scouted out of the solo queue. He had climbed the Korean ladder under the name GoJeonPa, posting numbers that did not match his age. SK Telecom's head coach Kim "kkOma" Jeong-gyun spotted him there. The organisation pulled him off the ladder and built a roster around the mid lane.
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Photo Credit: Riot Games
The team was unveiled in February 2013 — initially SK Telecom T1 2, later SK Telecom T1 K once the sister-team structure was untangled. The line-up: Impact, Bengi, Faker, Piglet, PoohManDu.
His professional debut came on April 6, 2013, in Seoul. The opponent was CJ Entus Blaze and the mid lane match-up pitted the 17-year-old rookie against Kang "Ambition" Chan-yong, then considered one of the best midlaners in Korea. Faker picked Nidalee. In the seventh minute, he speared Ambition for the solo kill. He closed the game at 6/0/7.
The first major final came that summer. OGN Champions Summer 2013, against KT Rolster Bullets.
The series went to game five, and game five — under the rules of the time — was a blind pick. Both mid laners locked Zed. The duel that followed, Faker against Ryu, one of the most replayed clip in League of Legends history. SKT won the trophy.
OH LOOK AT THE CLEANSE, LOOK AT THE MOVES! FAKER! WHAT WAS THAT!
Three months later, the team flew to Los Angeles for Worlds 2013. They went 15–3 across the event, swept Uzi’s Royal Club 3–0 in the final at the Staples Center, and Faker became a world champion on his first attempt. He was 17.
II — The first dynasty (2014–2017)
2014 was the only fallow year of the early period. SKT failed to qualify for Worlds — eliminated in the OGN Champions Summer playoffs by NaJin White Shield. Faker spent the autumn watching Samsung White lift his trophy.
The 2015 reset was the platform for everything that followed. OGN's sister-team rule had been scrapped — SKT T1 K and SKT T1 S merged into a single SK Telecom T1, and Faker shared mid lane minutes with Lee "Easyhoon" Ji-hoon for much of the spring. The two-mid system became a tactical weapon. SKT lost the first MSI final 3–2 to EDward Gaming in Tallahassee — the only major international defeat of the season — then ran the table at Worlds 2015 in Berlin. They only lost one map on the entire tournament. Faker beat KOO Tigers 3–1 in the final.
Photo Credit: Riot Games
2016 was the cleanest year of his career. SKT won the spring split, won IEM, won MSI — with Faker taking the Finals MVP — and reached the Worlds final at the Staples Center for a rematch against Samsung Galaxy. T1 took it 3–2. Faker won his second international Finals MVP, his third world title, and arguably the best season any mid laner has ever assembled.
The first crack came in 2017. SKT won MSI again — back-to-back. But at Worlds, in Beijing, Samsung Galaxy returned, this time with Ambition as their jungler. Ambition had been the mid laner Faker solo-killed four years earlier. The series was a 3–0 sweep for Samsung. The Bird's Nest stadium watched Faker break down on stage in tears. He was 21. The shot of him crying with his face buried in his palm became, briefly, the most-recognised image in esports.
Photo Credit: Riot Games
III — The desert (2018–2022)
The years that followed were the hardest of his career. SKT collapsed in 2018 — bottom-half of the LCK, missed Worlds. Faker was benched in late split for the first time since his debut. The organisation tore the roster down to studs.
He won a silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta — the first edition to include esports as a demonstration sport — losing the gold-medal match to China.
2019 brought a partial recovery. SKT made the Worlds semifinals in Madrid before losing to G2 Esports in five games. 2020 was worse. Another missed Worlds — the third of his career, after 2014 and 2018 — and no LCK title to show for the year.
Photo Credit: Riot Games
The rebuild that became the next era started in 2021. T1 — the organisation had rebranded a year earlier — promoted two academy players to the main roster: Moon "Oner" Hyeon-joon at jungle and Lee "Gumayusi" Min-hyeong at bot. They signed Ryu "Keria" Min-seok from DRX to play support, alongside returning top laner Kim "Canna" Chang-dong. That five reached the Worlds 2021 semifinals in Reykjavik and lost to DWG KIA in five maps.
The full line-up that would define the next era — Zeus, Oner, Faker, Gumayusi, Keria, soon shortened to ZOFGK — only came together in the 2022 off-season. T1 parted ways with Canna and promoted academy top laner Choi "Zeus" Woo-je to the starting roster.
2022 was the year that almost broke them. T1 went 18–0 in the LCK Spring Split — the only undefeated split in league history. They lost the MSI final to Royal Never Give Up. At Worlds 2022, in front of a home crowd in San Francisco, they reached the final. The opponent: DRX, with Faker's high-school classmate Deft on the AD carry. T1 lost 2–3. Deft, a thirteen-year veteran with no worlds championship title, lifted the cup. Faker, again, was the runner-up.
Photo Credit: Riot Games
He re-signed with T1 in late November 2022 — a three-year extension, ending speculation that he might leave for an LPL team.
IV — The redemption arc (2023–2025)
The bounce-back came in stages. Faker missed a month of the 2023 LCK Summer Split with a hand injury, and T1 scraped into Worlds as Korea's second seed. In between, he captained Korea to gold at the postponed 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou — a result that also granted him exemption from mandatory military service. They drew JD Gaming in the Worlds semifinal — the LPL super-team chasing the Golden Road, with Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk, the AD carry of the Samsung Galaxy side that had swept Faker 3–0 in the 2017 final, on the bot lane.
Game three: JDG is pushing through T1's towers. Faker, on Azir, shuffled the sand soldier forward, predicted Ruler's flash, and landed Emperor's Divide perfectly. The Varus dissolved on the spot. T1 took the map and closed the series 3–1. Six years to the month after Beijing, in front of a Korean crowd, Faker had taken the play back.
The final was at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul — the first time he had played a Worlds final on home soil. T1 swept Weibo Gaming 3–0. Title number four, Faker's first in seven years, and the first trophy the ZOFGK line-up ever lifted.
2024 doubled it. T1 spent the regular season looking ordinary. But when Worlds came at the end of the year, they started to sweep everyone: Top Esports 3–0, Gen.G 3–1, and a five-game final against Bilibili Gaming at London's O2 Arena. He won his second Worlds Finals MVP, eight years after the first. He crossed 500 career kills at Worlds during the run.
He also won the Esports World Cup in Riyadh that summer, taking the tournament MVP on top of the team trophy.
2025 should have been a transition year. Zeus left the organisation in the off-season — a major departure, replaced by Choi "Doran" Hyeon-joon. The LCK regular season was, again, uneven. T1 entered Worlds 2025 without the favourite tag.
Six Worlds titles. The first three-peat in the history of the tournament. Oner, Faker, Gumayusi and Keria became the first four players to lift the Summoner's Cup three times in a row.
V — Year fourteen (2026)
The contract he signed in August 2025 runs until 2029. He will be 33 when it ends.
On January 2, 2026, at the Blue House New Year's reception, President Lee Jae-myung handed Faker the Cheongnyong Medal — first class of South Korea's Order of Sport Merit, and the highest sporting honour the state can bestow. He is the first esports athlete ever to receive it. The names on the list ahead of him include figure skater Kim Yuna or footballer Son Heung-min
He is also a part-owner of T1. He has a voice in roster decisions. He is, by any honest accounting, one of the most decorated competitor any esport has ever produced.
Photo Credit: T1LoL on X
Six world titles. Two MSI titles. Ten LCK titles. One Esports World Cup. One Asian Games gold, one silver. Two Worlds Finals MVPs separated by eight years. A career that started before some current rookies were in primary school and is still, in May 2026, the central story of the League of Legends global ecosystem.
Lee Sang-hyeok turned 30 this year and he is still the best player of all time.
