On Monday morning, 245,000 people tuned in to watch League of Legends player Faker stream on Twitch. If you aren’t a LoL player, or don’t have any idea who he is or why you should care, here’s the TL;DR. Faker is the current mid laner for Korean team SK Telecom and has won three world championships. He is arguably one of the best players to ever play League and some regard him as the best mid laner in the world.
Faker, Controversy And Twitch
For the last two years, Faker and his SKT teammates were unable to stream on Twitch. Azubu, a rival streaming platform, had signed a deal with the team to have them exclusively stream on their platform. Even with the strength of League’s greatest team behind them, Azubu was never able to come out from behind Twitch’s shadow. SKT’s exclusivity contract ran out in 2017 and was never renewed, meaning Faker and the rest of his team were free to stream wherever they wished.
Players have been desperate to watch Faker on Twitch. So much so that in early 2015, a fan created a Twitch channel called “SpectateFaker” which rebroadcasted Faker’s games from the in-game client. Azubu wasn’t too happy about this and sent a DMCA, which took down the channel. ‘SpectateFaker” was reinstated until Riot Games had the stream taken down, again. This pissed off the fans who felt that Riot was being overbearing and getting involved for no reason. In the end, the channel was no more and players could no longer watch Faker on Twitch.
Why Faker Is So Fun to Watch
It doesn’t matter if you are a Bronze-level scrub or a Challenger jacket-wearing pro, everyone loves to watch Faker. Games on the Korean solo queue ladder tend to be a lot more action-packed than their NA and EU counterparts. When you throw Faker and the rest of SKT in the mix, the game’s become veritable powder kegs, filled with action every few seconds. It’s isn’t unusual to see Faker to have 7 kills before the 20-minute mark.
You can’t help but marvel at the way Faker plays League of Legends . If he thinks he can get a kill, he will go all in and perform a mechanical outplay you didn’t think was possible. His lighting-quick reflexes net him kill after kill, especially on his preferred assassins. Watching Faker play on his alt account “Hide on bush,” you can see a Katarina kill a Corki level two, a Leblanc outplay an enemy Jhin or any number of insane possibilities.
If you want to see the highest level of League of Legends play, you watch Faker’s stream. This is why players have been happier than an Amumu with friends. Faker will continue to pull in views by the hundreds of thousands because he’s just so fun to watch. You can also watch other SKT players, like Bang, if you want to see some really good LoL .
I look forward to watching the mid-laner god on Twitch for many years to come.
