Before the LCK Summer 2021 Playoffs officially commenced, the organizers of the Korean League of Legends tournament announced the list of individual honor categories for the group stage. One notable detail is Faker’s absence from all three of the group stage’s best teams, despite ranking in the top 3 of the individual MVP standings.
Addressing this issue, journalist Yoon Min-seop, representing the Kookmin Ilbo newspaper in Korea, shared his personal opinion on honoring players who have a significant influence in the tournament, which cannot be measured by specific statistics.
“I voted for Faker for a spot on the third best team. The fact is that I maintained this vote until the last day of the group stage. However, afterwards, I voted for Bdd.” – Yoon Min-seop stated. The reason for this change, as shared by the journalist, was due to Faker’s poor performance against HLE.
However, he still asserted that, in reality, Faker’s performance against HLE in the final match did not affect his perception of the overall performance of the Demon King throughout the season. In fact, he even suggested that the LCK should consider creating a new award category for players who have a significant influence outside the League of Legends client. Specifically, this would relate to players whose external impact (team calls, strategic directions) directly affects results and existing statistics within the client.
Yoon Min-seop believes that Faker is an exceptionally outstanding factor in this regard:
“Even when I don’t have truly deep knowledge, Faker’s directions still leave a lasting impression on me. I believe that T1’s ability to orient and adapt the game after the ban/pick phase is extremely impressive. But above all, the ability to read the opponent is what stands out the most.
Every time Faker makes predictions about the opponent’s movements and conveys that information to his teammates, the likelihood of everything happening as Faker predicted is quite high, at least compared to other players. I’m not sure if this is the result of years of competitive experience or if he is simply a natural talent.
Of course, my proposal to elevate Faker is not solely based on those team calls. I believe that the current Faker is the best version of himself since the match against RNG in 2017. His ability to handle the laning phase is truly becoming more refined.” (except for the match against HLE).
Yoon Min-seop is not the only one recognizing Faker’s influence in terms of “outside” the game client. In fact, during T1’s mic-check segments towards the end of coach Daeny’s era, Faker was reportedly said to have “disobeyed” the head coach and made team calls that contradicted the coaching staff’s strategy of “playing slowly to win safely,” and in at least two matches, Faker’s “spontaneous” team calls led to overall victories for T1.
After coach Stardust took over, T1’s new captain also revealed to the media that the team’s strategic issues have been entrusted to coach Moment and Faker. Although in theory, all players are allowed to contribute to strategic discussions, most T1 members tend to agree with the opinions regarding the post-ban/pick phase proposed by Faker.
However, creating an award heavily based on emotional impact remains quite impractical. While the current MVP list and best teams of the LCK are also chosen based on personal votes, at least they have a basic foundation of statistical numbers, whereas the influence of team leaders outside the client is very “ambiguous” and lacks specific standards for evaluation.
Yoon Min-seop also emphasized that the lack of audience during matches makes this evaluation criteria even more challenging. Since viewers do not know what players are saying and exchanging, it is also difficult to assess the influence of each individual.