Faker’s road to 1000 LCK matches: Here’s his most iconic games

Current world champion and esports legend Lee ‘Faker‘ Sang-hyeok is about to hit yet another milestone, playing his 1,000th game in the LCK, according to the league’s official statistics.

Following his series against Gen.G in the opening week of the LCK Spring 2025, which became the most-watched match in LCK regular season history, the legendary mid laner will hit four digits in poetic fashion, against his old rivals KT Rolster in the famous Telecom Wars.

Faker was initially set to break the milestone at the start of the year with the LCK Cup. Coincidentally, the 1,000th match was also supposed to be against KT Rolster. That said, the LCK casters have previously confirmed that LCK Cup stats are not treated as regular season games, meaning that all matches played in the first tournament of the year did not count towards Faker’s tally.

Before Faker hits Summoner’s Rift this upcoming Thursday, let’s relive some of his most iconic games played in the LCK.

Faker made his first appearance in professional play in 2013, going up against one of the top mid lane players at the time, CJ Blaze’s Kang ‘Ambition‘ Chan-yong. Playing for SKT T1’s secondary team, SK Telecom T1 K, Faker dominated the game from start to finish and even solo killed Ambition during the laning phase as Nidalee.

The casters were stunned: “I’ve never seen Ambition die like that,” said former LCK caster Christopher ‘MonteCristo’ Mykles after the play. A new era had begun.

If pentakills are already a rare occasion in professional League of Legends, what are the odds of seeing a pentakill on LeBlanc?

Faker got it on one of his signature picks during the deciding game against NaJin Sword. While the game was quite one-sided from the start, Faker ended the game by taking his first and only official pentakill, bursting down the enemy Kalista with a swift play.

Speaking of swift plays, League of Legends fans from the old guard won’t forget Faker’s Riven. Often considered obsolete for professional play, the mid lane legend picked her up against KT Rolster’s Kim ‘Nagne’ Sang-moon.

Faker made an incredible, split-second dodge, quickly avoiding Cassiopeia’s ultimate during a dive, which led him to snowball the game and claim the LCK title.

Even though Faker’s iconic champion is Ryze, Azir has been the one that defined him in professional play over the past ten years.

Aside from the incredible ‘Shurima Shuffles’ at crucial moments during the international stages (who can forget the play on Ruler at Worlds 2023), Faker pulled off some brilliant plays against KT Rolster in the LCK 2023 Summer Playoffs. In particular, escaping from a two-man gank by the enemies’ support and jungler — truly unkillable.

Even if you have never touched League of Legends, you probably have seen or heard of Faker’s Zed play against KT Rolster Ryu ‘Ryu’ Sang-wook.

Back in the OGN days, teams used to blind pick champions during the deciding fifth game, and both mid laners ended up choosing Zed. Despite the disadvantage, Ryu was looking to punish an overextending Faker in the mid lane… and well, the rest is history.

While most of Faker’s iconic matches have all been decided by one key play, the Telecom Wars during the LCK 2017 Spring Split regular season was explosive from start to finish.

Back then, 2022 world champion Kim ‘Deft’ Hyuk-kyu was playing on KT, making the series not only between the two Korean organisations, but also between two symbolic pros who used to study in the same high school.

KT, who put together a super team with the hopes of dethroning SKT T1 (who had just won back-to-back world championships), kicked off Game 3 with a substantial lead that Faker and his team recovered. After a gruelling 53-minute game, SKT T1 managed to defend their base with only the Nexus remaining, acing KT and taking the victory.