In the history of League of Legends in general and LCK in particular, it might be hard to find a player who has had such a significant impact as Faker. Not only has he had a long career, but Faker has also been incredibly successful in his role as a professional player. Throughout the entire history of LCK, Faker is the player with the most championships. Moreover, alongside SKT T1/T1, he is also the player who has won the World Championship the most times. Faker’s career success and professionalism have also inspired many players, from his contemporaries to the younger generation.
Of course, with the success and fame he has built, it is no surprise that Faker is also the player with the largest fanbase in the professional League of Legends scene. He is the first League of Legends player to surpass 1 million followers on Instagram. In any match involving T1, that match is almost guaranteed to be among the top viewed matches of the tournament. Especially, the view count will be even higher if T1 faces off against rivals with a rich history like Gen.G, Dplus KIA, or KT Rolster.
Recently, Faker achieved another impressive statistic. He currently has a total of 1.84 million subscribers on YouTube. Surprisingly, this number is only 120k less than the total followers of all 10 LCK teams combined. It can be understood that, in the entire professional League of Legends scene in South Korea, Faker is the player with the highest number of YouTube subscribers, even though he does not frequently upload videos on the platform. This number is many times higher than less popular teams like OKSavingsBank BRION or Nongshim RedForce. In fact, among all teams, only T1 has a subscriber count close to their captain.
However, this inadvertently brings up a problem for the entire LCK: Faker has an overwhelming influence, and just on YouTube alone, he surpasses all teams, including T1 itself. Meanwhile, Faker is indeed aging and his time can be counted in years. Not to mention, recently, Faker has shown he has been injured and shortly thereafter T1 faced a decline in results. Even in the classic showdown between KT and Gen.G for the top of the table, it was not as exciting as the match between T1 and DRX.
Faker has achieved another milestone, but this time it also means a new issue has arisen for the LCK. And one day, when Faker truly retires, no one can imagine what this tournament will be like.