This article is by Park Lin and read by an artificial voice.

SKT T1's Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok reaffirmed his status as a legend after his team won the League of Legends (LoL) World Championship, the world's biggest esports tournament, on Sunday. T1, led by Faker, beat KT Rolster 3-2 in the finals held on Sunday at Dong'an Lake Sports Park in Chengdu, China.
LoL, developed by U.S.-based Riot Games, is a five-on-five online video game in which each player selects one of 171 champion characters to try and destroy the opposing team's base. T1 was down 2-1 after the third game but came back to win the fourth and fifth to take the title.
SKT T1 and KT Rolster are run by two of Korea's largest telecommunications companies, which have been longtime rivals since the early 2000s StarCraft era. They met once again this year in what's often dubbed the "telecom derby" of LoL - a rivalry in which T1 has continued to dominate. Faker extended his record for the most championship titles to six, with wins in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2023, 2024 and 2025 - becoming the first player to win three in a row.
Even when facing elimination in the fourth game, Faker smiled and stayed composed throughout the match, strategically using his skills to stop KT's advances and lead his team to victory.
T1 qualified for the global tournament as the fourth seed from Korea's domestic league, the LCK, and advanced steadily from the play-in stage. Playing as a mid laner, Faker proved to be a killer against the Chinese teams during the previous stages. China's Anyone's Legend and Top Esports (TES), both from the Chinese LPL league, were knocked out by T1 in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively. Faker, who holds a perfect record of 13 wins and no losses against LPL teams, said, "I didn't have time to go see pandas, which are the symbol of Chengdu. I was too busy practicing."

Most esports players retire by age 25, when their reaction speed starts to decline. But Faker, dubbed the "Lionel Messi of esports" among countless other nicknames of acclaim, is still at the top at 29 - just like Messi, now 38, is in football. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, praised Faker during a recent visit to Seoul, saying his name three times during an event at Coex and noting that without Korea's PC bang culture and esports, Nvidia wouldn't be what it is today.
Gwak "BDD" Bo-seong, who led KT to its first-ever World Championship final, is also known for switching to the mid lane position after idolizing Faker.
Korean teams have now won the title four years in a row - DRX in 2022, followed by T1 from 2023 through 2025. The semifinal between T1 and TES drew more than 3.59 million concurrent viewers online.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

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