Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok has been titled as the Shanghai-Seoul esports ambassador by Shanghai Esports Association on November 29, his League of Legends team T1 announced on Twitter.
This is only one of many achievements Faker has reached during his career as a professional League of Legends player. He has been a part of SK Telecom T1, now rebranded as T1, since the start of his competitive career, and has won three Worlds Championship titles with the team.
The latest honor makes him an ambassador for Esports Shanghai Masters 2019, a multi-game event with tournaments in Overwatch, WarCraft 3, and most relavantly, League of Legends.
Although recent years haven’t been as successful for the T1’s mid-laner, they’ve been far from bad. After finishing as the runner-up at the 2017 Worlds, T1 went through a complete roster change focused around Faker.
The new roster struggled at first, but proved to be the best in Korea once again by finishing the last season at the top of 2019 LoL Championship Korea. T1 was a dangerous opponent at 2019 Worlds as well, but the team got overshadowed by G2 Esports and finished tied for third after a semifinals loss.
Nevertheless, third place at Worlds is a great achievement, and consistently being at the top of the world has became the norm for Faker. Just a month ago, he won his 100th international game as the first player to ever reach that milestone.Â
As one of the most popular, if not the most popular, League players in the world, Faker is attending the Shanghai Masters together with the rest of his team.
Even though there are other games played, League is in the spotlight of the event with players coming from from China, Europe, Korea, and North America. Six players from each region will compete in teams named Tiger, Dragon, Lion, and Eagle. A prize pool of around $700,000 has been prepared for the event by the Shanghai-Jingan government.
The event has started on November 29 and will last three days. Besides the esports tournaments, there will also be parties, conferences, and more.
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