Lee “Faker” Sang-hyuk, who celebrated his 10th anniversary this year, has announced a break for health reasons for the first time in his career.
T1 lost to DRX in Game 2 of Day 1 of Week 5 of the 2023 League of Legends Champions Korea Summer at Roll Park in Jongno-gu, Seoul on May 5, ending the first round with a 6-3 record. While DRX’s post-game interview with the winners revealed the presence of Lee “Faker” Sang-hyuk, it was revealed that he will take at least two weeks to return to action. 먹튀검증
Having made his debut in April 2013, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyuk has remained a stalwart in the center of T1’s lineup, starting the majority of matches in its 10th anniversary year. In that time, fewer than a dozen players have replaced Lee “Faker” Sang-hyuk as T1’s mid laner.
In 2015, Lee “Ji-hoon” Sang-hyuk was competing for the starting role. At the time, T1 had their best year ever, winning the 2015 LCK Spring and Summer, as well as the Rold Cup, with different strategies depending on which mid laner was playing. In 2016, T1 had Lee “Scout” Ye-chan, but he only played in the 2016 LCK Spring Week 1 against Jin Air, where he started the first game and was replaced by Lee “Sang-hyuk” Lee in the second game after losing. In 2017, Kim “Sky” Ha-neul was on the roster, but Sang-hyuk played every game.
The last season in which Sang-hyuk actually competed for a starting spot was the 2018 LCK Summer, when Choi “Piraean” Joon-sik played 19 matches in sets. In 2019, Kim “Gori” Tae-woo played just one set against Griffin in the LCK Summer Split. Lee ‘Closer’ Joo-hyun made multiple appearances throughout the 2020 LCK Summer and 2021 LCK Spring, but was unable to participate in the Rold Cup selection and the Rold Cup after T1 announced that they would refrain from rotating players in the Summer Split.
While there have been many players who have shared the mid lane with Lee for tactical reasons, this is the first time T1 has had to call up a new mid laner, Yoon “Phobi” Sung-won, at short notice due to player health. It will be interesting to see what kind of strategy T1 will bring to the table in the upcoming matches, as the results against DRX confirmed that they have a presence that is difficult to express through simple numbers.