The best League of Legends player in the world, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok have had his fair share of troubles in the past 1.5 years. His team, SK Telecom T1 lost to Samsung Galaxy in the grand finale of the 2017 Worlds. Since that defeat, SKT and Faker have failed to properly redeem themselves. After losing the final, Faker and co finished 4th in the 2018 Spring playoffs. So the side failed to qualify for the Rift Rivals and MSI. They also miss the Summer Playoffs and failed to participate in Worlds 2018 and finished at 8th place in the KesPA Cup. Such a terrible form of the Korean side was witnessed previously in 2014. But it wasn’t this bad, since back in those days, their were a lot less international competitions.
The stats
The followers of Faker might think that, these series of poor performances, might get other players a fighting chance to take the top spot from Faker, in term of tournament winnings. Yet Faker is still No.1. The GOAT of League of Legends has earned more than $ 1.2 million in terms of prizes. He has won seven domestic titles, two MSI titles and three world championships. The one player who comes close to Faker is Lee “Duke” Ho-seong of Invictus Gaming. He has won over $ 950K in winnings and needs over $ 300K to take the top spot from Faker. We should tell you this this the amount that each player of Samsung Galaxy was awarded with after winning the Worlds 2017.
.@Faker hits the MASSIVE five man Gnar ult on Sylas to get @T1LoL back into the game! #MSI2019 pic.twitter.com/Z07H8K0oaj
— lolesports (@lolesports) May 18, 2019
Now the competitive scene has expanded to new horizons. This mean that the world championship now award a lot more than just a prestigious trophy. In 2018, each player of the winning side, Invictus Gaming got over $ 400K. Despite these high winnings, we don’t see Faker losing his top spot this year. Since SKT is starting to show signs of improvement, they might have not the best MSI campaign, yet the side still managed to end up in the top 4. If the continue to improve on these results, then Faker will only continue to extend the lead over his rivals. Moreover, even if SKT and Faker fails to get a decent result, We will surely have to wait until 2020 for someone to overtake Faker at the top spot.
Can they do it again?
Faker is arguably the best League of Legends player in the world. He has an incredible success with SK Telecom. The Korean star has established a solid reputation of reigning supreme in the mid lane. He has proved time after time that no one can win against him. Indeed he had a purple patch but honestly who doesn’t. We really hope that SK and Faker build on the MSI result and again come out all guns blazing at the Worlds 2019. We would love to see them lift their 4th world championship and see Faker establish a solid lead in the eSports earning charts.
