On Saturday night, two esports heroes and their teams fought each other tooth and nail for over five million viewers in the League of Legends Worlds finals, backed by a plot better than any concocted
On Saturday night, two esports heroes and their teams fought each other tooth and nail for over five million viewers in the League of Legends Worlds finals, backed by a plot better than any concocted by a team of scriptwriters. While there were no villains in Riot Games’ massive esports spectacle, after battling the full distance of the five game set there were winners—and unfortunately, losers—as the fourth seed Korean underdogs DRX raised the Summoner’s Cup while second seed T1 looked on.
While the five games that T1 and DRX wrestled over the championship did generate a half dozen truly fantastic moments, the story behind their meeting outshines them. It’s the kind of unbelievable plot no movie audience would buy. The star players from each team are the same age, started their pro League of Legends careers in February 2013, and even went to the same high school—Mapo High School in Seoul, South Korea. While the play of their teammates was the heart of the battle for Worlds 2022, the soul was all about the rivalry of T1’s Lee «Faker» Sang-hyeok and DRX’s Kim «Deft» Hyuk-kyu coming to a head in the grand finals. Let me take you on a short journey through the story of the two esports veterans. The Demon-King and the Hard Luck Hero
(Image credit: Riot)
While Faker and Deft shared remarkably similar starting points, their careers went in markedly different directions, orbiting each other in the Korean league like a pair of meteors.
With Faker being the core signing and mid laner of the brand new SK Telecom T1 K in early 2013, he went on to lead the Korean team to a shocking run throughout the year, including dual victories over KT Rolster Bullets (opens in new tab) to earn a spot at the Season 3 World Championships, where he would help SKT crush the opposition to cruise to a 3-0 Grand Finals victory over Chinese team Royal Club for his first of three titles as a World Champion in League of Legends. In a single year, Faker was plucked from the Korean solo queue and fought his way to the top of the mountain.
But for Deft, his first year was a struggle, joining newly formed MVP Blue as their bottom laner, MVP Blue failed to make it out of the group stage at several tournaments before being acquired by Samsung Blue and playing in the 2013-2014 Champions Winter tournament. This was the first time Deft and Faker would have a showdown, and it ended in an SKT 3-0 victory. Despite accolades and celebration of Deft as a regular candidate or runner up for most valuable player of the Korean league and several appearances at worlds—including a brutal loss (opens in new tab) in five games to eventual World Champion team Invictus Gaming in 2018 in the first round of knockouts—Deft had never made it to the Grand Finals once, where by 2016, Faker had already won it all in them three times. In fact, over the years, both Deft and Faker have been to the World Championships seven times apiece, but while Faker has been with SKT since his debut, Deft has moved around to do it with five different teams—Samsung Blue, Edward Gaming, KT Rolster, Hanwha Life Esports, and DragonX.
But by 2022, Deft and Faker had come to a different stage of their career, one where even Faker was being questioned and whispered about as past his prime by some. Despite Deft being on a competitive team at Worlds most years, the last time he even played in the semifinals was 2014, whereas Faker has never been eliminated before the semis. Most esports players are considered venerable at 26, where the average age of League of Legends pros is around 21 and most retire by 25 (opens in new tab).
For Deft, who had never been able to fight his way into the ring for a title bout, the question seemed to be «when will you retire?» and not the «will he ever retire?» usually pointed at Faker. In fact in an interview with Invenglobal in May he even had that attitude himself, saying: “I feel that there isn’t much time left in my career, but there’s a big difference between ‘not much time’ and ‘no time’. I want to do my best so that I can show what the fans and I both want to see in my remaining time.” The spirit and competitive drive was still there, but Deft was acknowledging that in the world of esports—he was a mortal.
But for the resident immortal demon king, Faker, the retooled T1 team’s lack of success was now his fault in the eyes of fans. Faker suffered substantial online harassment from a group of fans (opens in new tab) and was threatening to quit playing ranked due to players intentionally throwing games (opens in new tab), more challenges in a difficult year. Looking at the upcoming Worlds 2022, Faker was facing the fact that he was on the outside looking in statistically for the first time on the biggest stage of League of Legends. Faker’s performance throughout the year in the LCK was outshone by a number of other players—like Gen.G mid-laner Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon—which was changing Faker’s role into more of the veteran leader of a squad of young players with potential, and not the hyper-carry of old.
Worlds 2022 had arrived for Faker and Deft, and Faker was stoically contemplating restoring T1 to a glory that it hadn’t brushed since 2017’s crushing 3-0 defeat by Samsung Galaxy in the grand finals, a defeat that saw a humbled Faker dethroned and overcome by tears (opens in new tab). While Faker wanted to underline his reputation and bring a new generation of talent to the top, Deft was staring mortality and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune down. As usual, the climb for Deft would not be an easy one, as DRX was the Korean 4th seed, and could only qualify for Worlds by making it through the play-in stage: a ruthless round robin and knockout series of 12 hungry teams. But Deft set the stage for what was to come by helping DRX to a flawless 5-0 record in the play-in, guaranteeing them a spot in Worlds and a date with destiny for the two former schoolmates as both T1 and DRX fought their way to the grand finals.At the nexus(es) of fate
(Image credit: Riot)
Game 1 (T1 0 — DRX 0)
After all the spectacle of the delayed opening ceremony (led by Lil Nas X, of all people), we get down to digital brass tacks with the first pick and ban phase—in which we see both T1 and DRX decide the tone for the series by choosing violence: not a single tank is picked by either team. This series is going to be two teams trying to make zero mistakes and amplify every mistake of the other.
T1 is put on their back foot early by a first blood kill on Faker in the mid-lane, but recover through a stolen dragon by Gumayusi and an ambush on DRX while they try to take herald in the top-side river.
