Faker Esports Career: League of Legends Facts

Game: League of Legends
Role: Professional esports player
Country: South Korea

A sourced evergreen guide to Faker, with facts, context and reference links.

By the Pop Culture Files editorial team•Updated June 5, 2026•4 min read•✓ Fact-checked

Faker reference image — Fomos Esports via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0

Lee Sang-hyeok (Korean: 이상혁; born May 7, 1996), better known as Faker, is a South Korean professional League of Legends player. Debuting in 2013, he has played as the mid-laner for T1 (formerly SK Telecom T1) for his entire career. He has won a record 10 League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) titles, two Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) titles, and a record six World Championship titles. Faker is widely regarded as the greatest League of Legends player in history and has drawn comparison analogizing him to basketball player Michael Jordan for his esports success. Originally from Gangseo District, Seoul, Faker established an early reputation as a dominant solo queue player before being signed by SKT in 2013 at the age of 17. In his debut year he won an LCK title and the World Championship. From 2014 to 2017, he won five further LCK titles, two MSI titles in 2016 and 2017, and two additional World Championships in 2015 and 2016, becoming the first team to win the championship more than once and to win back-to-back titles. During this time, he also emerged victorious in the All-Star Paris 2014 and the IEM World Championship in 2016. Between 2018 and 2022, Faker won four more LCK titles,...