Faker sets new record playing over 70 champions in pro games

Legendary mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok has now used a total of 70 diffferent champions throughout his LCK career, and 74 across his entire career after locking in Tryndamere during T1’s latest series. He also showed how effective the hero is as a counter to Corki.

Up against DRX in T1’s third match of the split, Faker pulled out the unexpected pick as an answer to Corki, who is firmly entrenched in the current meta and is regularly picked or banned. 

Corki’s prevalence in the meta has been a frequent occurrence over the years, largely due to his safe laning phase and strong scaling. His recent emergence has also been attributed to his ability to effectively use the new First Strike rune.

Faker proves Tryndamere is a strong Corki counter

Faker’s Tryndamere proved to be a strong counter to Corki.

The pick proved to be a success as Faker went on to grab eight kills in the match, including a turret-diving triple kill which set up the game-winning push. T1 ultimately won the entire series 2-0.

While Faker is famed for his proficiency on the likes of Azir, Orianna and, in particular, LeBlanc, the Korean has had his fair share of seemingly random picks. Tryndamere joins a slim list of champions that Faker has played and won with only once, the others being Olaf, Poppy and Vex, the last of which is newly released and may soon leave this niche group.

A slightly larger group of champions are those that the three-time world champion has played with just the a single time, only to lose the game and never touch them again. While most of these are unconventional mid lane picks, Darius, Kayle, Nautilus, Quinn and Singed, a wild Lux and Pantheon also find their way onto the list. Both have had their fair share of priority in the mid lane at different times in the game’s history.