Faker is an in-game name of a popular and successful professional game player who hails from South Korea and is considered to be the most respectable and skilled “League of Legends” player in the world.
He won the LOL World Championship three times which is not something a lot of players can bragg about they did in such a short period of time.
His past in-game name was “GiJeonPa” but everybody currently calls him Faker, after he became one of the most valuable STK players.
Faker is an extra player so his nicknames were also God and Unkillable Demon King. All of these names are supposed to show that he is an awesome player.
Early years
Faker was born as Lee Sang-Hyeok on May 17, 1996, in a town Seoul in South Korea in Asia. He knew that using this name for his career online would be a bit complicated, so he decided to for another, shorter version.
Faker grew up with his brother but was unfortunate to spend his entire early life and childhood without his mother. That means that he was raised by his father, along with his brother and with a big help of his grandparents.
His mother wasn’t a part of their family but we don’t know the reason. He does not like to talk about this.
Faker and his brother shared common interest in most of things and gaming was one of them. They used to play video games for hours.
Faker grew up mostly playing video games and always liked to play with puzzles too. He is a pretty interesting guy with many different hobbies and interests.
His father was named Lee Kyung-joon and he lived with his two sons in Gangseo District, one of Seoul’s wards which is settled on the south of the river Han.
His most favorite video game of his youth was Warcraft, but in 2011, when he was 15 years old, Faker has discovered a video game which will change his life.
Career development
He discovered one of the biggest video games ever launched, the “League of Legends”. His love for this game made him become skilled in it very fast so he was soon one of the biggest players in the coutry.
His success was so big that he quit schooling (quit high school), to join SK Telecom T1 team in his role of Mid Laner.
Faker was spotted by SK Telecom T1 team back in 2013, just two years after he started playing League of Legends. He became their mid laner and with his help the team successfully dominated through all 2013.
Faker helped his new team to become the winners of their 1st League of his new team to become the winners of their 1st League of Legends World Chamoionship.
It was in summer 2013, at the HOT6iX Championship in Seoul, that Faker showed his great skills and abbilities to rise as a winner against all odds.
He brilliantly won in his duel against a very respectable mid laner from KT Rolster team and their game is remembered as one of the most astonishing rival games in League of Legends’ history.
In 2014, Faker’s team became invincible. They won all the games in the winter season and broke their records in the number of winning games. The team began earning serious money and Faker started to get higher paychecks.
Spring and summer gaming season brought a lot of changes in his team since their luck has turned and they came to the point they didn’t even qualify for 2014 League of Legends World Championship as everyone expected.
2014 brought a lot of changes in the world of Korean LOL gaming. A very big number of Korean League of Legends players, including the best ones, went out of the country and joined several Chinese League of Legends teams because they offered them very high sallaries and more bonuses.
However, Faker refused such an offer (word is that he was offeres wirh $1 million to join the Chinese team) and decided to stay on his SKT team.
He didn’t want to leave the team where he has started off his career. He was attached to the guys and wanted to procceed in the career.
In 2015, Faker showed off his skills in many tournaments and his team was ranked as No1 at the end of the summer and qualified for the world championship.
2015 League of Legends World Championships was completely under the ruling of his team. They won the championship with a record of 15-1 (win-lost).
In 2016, after a few rough matches on the tournament, his team won the title aftee defeating the North American team named “Counter Logic Gaming”.
In 2016, although being just third in the summer league, they entered 2016 LOL World Championship as favorites. They defeated “Samsung Galaxy” team in the final round and STK won their third title as world champions.
Faker was again at his best and he became the most important playee on his team. He was also rewarded with the title of the MVP of the tournament.
In 2017, Faker prolonged his contract with SK Telecom and gained over $2 million salary. It was a phenomenal succesd for him and he was very happy about that.
In February 2017, Faker started livestreaming on a known player’s platform called “Twitch.tv”. His stream gained almost 250, 000 views and it became the record on the Twitch.tv website. One year later, the record was broken by another streamer.
In 2017 season, his team was defeated by Samsung Galaxy team and Faker was a parr of it since he lost his game at the tournament. He was very upset after this loss and couldn’t handle it well.
In 2018, SKT T1 team hadn’t qualified for the World Championship which also upset Faker. It was to the point that he has lost some weight in that period because the losing row of his STK T1 team with five lost matches troubled him a lot.
In 2017, Faker was awarded as the Best Esports Player at The Game Awards.
In 2018, he won a David Yan award for most beloved gamer which is one of the most interesting gaming awards.
Personal life
Faker doesn’t speak English and when he has interviews he has a translator to help him. This is one of the reasons he didn’t grow even bigger in fame.
Lee has two flower pots which he mentions as a stress relief from gaming. He likes to spend time working around the household too, he is pretty creative.
An interesting fact about Faker is that journalists from E-sports call him “the Lionel Messi of Lol”. It’s a great comparison and boosts his ego.
In one of the interviews Faker gave, he said that he has no time for girls and dating since he spends most of his time practising. He said that it was either to do his job or go out, nothing in the middle.
Here are some of Faker’s awards on which he is very proud of.
He won the award for the best player at Pandora TV Champions League of Legends Winter 2013-2014.
He has received The Most Valuable Player Award in League of Legends e-sports in The Republic of Korea in 2013.
He received The Best Player Award at the Hot Six League of Legends Champions Summer in 2013. This was a big one.
In 2015, he won an award called Republic of Korea e-sports destination of Legends League Popularity Award.
In 2015 and 2016, he has received numerous awards both from e-sports and from his team’s championships. He is working very hard to get more of them and since he is very young, we believe that he is going ti succeed.
Quick summary
Full name: Lee Sang-Hyeok
Date of birth: May 17, 1996
Birthplace: Seoul, South Korea
Age: 23
Profession: LoL mid laner player, streamer
Height: 176 cm
Weight: NA
Net Worth: $ 4, 6 million
