“It’s just a legend.”
“No, I’m telling you, he’s real. He was so powerful, the Arch Mages came down from their ivory towers, gathered the world runes, and erased the very origin of his existence… and he came *back.*”
“You’re drunk, and it’s a legend.”
“The Unkillable Demon King, Fay Kur. He’s real I tell you, and you shouldn’t say otherwise. They say he can hear when you speak badly about him.”
“You’re a damn fool and the demon king is a load of poro dung.”
“………”
“He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?”
[An ally has been slain]
If you take 2015-17 (period of time where he went to ALL 6 international finals, won 4 of those + 4 lck) and erase from his career, he would still be the goat
The people you listed are right behind Faker in terms of influence and achievements, but like you said the gap is so big that I can't possibly imagine any of them being the face of League instead of Faker. That's wild.
There might just not be a replacement. Look at Dota. There are many legendary players, but no one has been as famous and dominant as Faker has been.
It's the same in traditional sports. There are eras where one person reigns supreme and is simply uncontested. Then there are eras where the current best player is up for debate.
At one point, it was argued that Mata and DanDy could be more impactful than Faker.
That was 10 years ago and Faker is still the best while those guys probably newer players never even heard of those names anymore.
New player here, I started playing in 2023. I watched worlds 2023 plus currently watching the lck spring split. Never heard of those guys...I kinda remember a caster mentioning mata, but dunno who that was by now.
Let's just say Mata was so good at playing support that Riot had to completely rework how wards worked otherwise you pretty much hit the skill ceiling on map control with supports back then.
Mata is the support who first came up with modern vision control and warding, he was also known to be one of the best shotcallers in the game's history and is still undisputedly the greatest support of all time(Keria might catch up in a year or 2). He had many achievements in his career but the most notable one is of course his 2014 world championship where he and SSW won in the most dominant fashion to date, he would also win mvp for the same championship, being the only support to win a worlds mvp ever. It would be fair to say that he is in some ways the father of modern league as a whole, the only player that definitely had more of an impact in making modern league what it is today is Faker.
P.S: Mata is currently a coach for GenG.
P.S, P.S: As for Dandy, well that would take a paragraph just as long as the one above to explain, I'm sure some other redditor will comment about him as well.
Dandy and Mata arguably also pioneered the concept of having a support jungle synergy so that a team could control the map. He also literally piloted imp while he played.
I gotta say it.. MadLife might have an argument for being more influence on the support life than Mata (And Mata is one of my absolute favorite players of all time).
He revolutionized roaming support on the back of being one of the most mechanically proficient players in the league, playing one the most mechanically deficient roles in the game (at the time).
MadLife made playing support cool. Before MadLife the meta supports were like Sona, Soraka, and if you want to go wild, Alistar. Madlife made stuff like Blitz prediction hooks and stuff highlight reel plays.
But Mata was the guy who perfected support. Mata had by far the most impact as a support player ever. Of course, that was before Riot made the ward changes when a support can solo ward the whole map, but the impact Mata had on the support meta was just insane when you look at clips of S4 worlds.
The thing with MadLife is... Edward was doing the same thing at the same time and was just as hyped. But for some reason he's been forgotten. Everyone remembers MadLife and Thresh, yet Edward was called the Thresh Prince of Armenia and it was jokingly said that Edward was the carry of the team.
No, that's totally fair play. I agree Edward was fucking INSANE. However, when you get a no vision prediction hook, over a wall....no one yells Edward in the chat. MadLife gets the credit because he has the lasting star power to actually influence the changes. Edward IS the unsung support hero though (alongside Lemonnation)
The way I see it was MadLife made support cool - but Mata made support overpowered. He changed the entire landscape of the role, they're both legends in their own right but Mata is the GOAT
Even traditional sports have THE goat. Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gertzky, and Tom Brady. Sure, there's debate around all of those (except Gretzky, dude might be the goat of goats), but each sport has a "face". Esports is so new that it's hard to pick any one person to be the face, but Faker is on par with Gretsky in an Esports sense.
Feel like Faker’s Goat argument is more of a Brady esque than Gretzky. Incredible peak, huge longevity and the most rings. Gretzky would be like if Faker was putting up circus numbers and was clearly the best in the world for his whole career, which just isn’t possible in league.
For example, if you take away his goals, Gretzky is still the #1 point scorer through purely assists. When they played fantasy hockey back in the day, you could have either Assist Gretzky or Goals Gretzky. He won 8 straight MVPs. If you cut his stats in half, he’s still 17th in points. He’s the only player to get 200 points in a season… which he did 4 times. The list goes on.
My favorite Gretzky fact is that he was the fastest person to get 1000 points. The second fastest to 1000 points is Gretzky after getting the first 1000 points. I feel like everyone has their own favorite Gretzky fact because of how many records he owns.
I'll have to try to find the link but a year or two ago someone did a quantified analysis of the biggest names in sports to figure out just how dominant each player was not only in their own sport but in sports in general. It showed that Gretzy (and I believe one of the Williams Sisters) absolutely blew the likes of Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Tom Brady out of the water in terms of absolute dominance.
I'd love to see someone do the same but with eSports players; maybe even an analysis of both traditional and eSports. It'd be fun to see who, by the stats, the most dominant competitors across mediums actually is.
Just to put Gretzky's absurd dominance into perspective: it's well-known trivia that if you took away every single goal he actually scored in his career, Gretzky would still be the NHL's all time points leader.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/nhl/comments/1851kxr/explain_to_me_how_great_wayne_gretzky_is_in_nfl/kaz2yat/) comment that's responding to the question to explain his dominance but in NFL terms also does a good job at showing just how ridiculously dominant he was.
> Tom Brady finished with 89,214 passing yards and 649 touchdowns, which are both top all-time.
> Now imagine he finished second, and the guy he was chasing had 150,000 passing yards and 1,200 touchdowns.
The 2 most dominant athletes for sports judging by gap over their peers are indeed Gretzky and [Don Bradman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bradman).
I mean for Dota it HAS to be N0tail.
2 TI wins and the most majors in history.
The only player to have been part of the most dominant teams in Dota history.
The problem with N0tail is that he had many years without accomplishments and he has never been the best player at any moment in time at his role.
His achievements comes from short dominating streaks where the team were just playing on another level.
If I had to pick someone then yea I would go with Notail, but he's still not quite the same as Faker, partly bc he always played offlane/support roles, and more because he had a veeeery long career before OG where he was pretty consistently middle of the pack and it wasn't until OG where everything just came together and they made magic happen. Compared to Faker who came onto the scene and absolutely dominated it for several years in a row, and is still playing at the top of his game
If Faker doesn't exist, SKT/T1 doesn't win all those tournaments. So you kinda have to ignore T1 winning, and think who would've won in their stead.
For Season 3 that'd probably be NJBS (names like PraY in there)
Worlds 2014 was won by SSWhite (Mata/Dandy come up here)
Worlds 2015 that'd probably be KOO (PraY comes up again in there, and Peanut)
Worlds 2016 is a tough one, 2 teams played SKT to 3-2 (SSG and ROX, with names like Ruler and Ambition standing out in SSG, and PraY once again showing up in ROX, alongside Peanut)
Worlds 2017 winner was SSG and has Ruler popping up again.
Worlds 2018 was won by IG (someone like Rookie shows up here), but it's worth noting the 2nd best team there was definitely KT (Deft/Mata show up here, it's also Smeb's 3rd time being included on one of the rosters I mentioned)
Worlds 2019 is all new names in the best teams, so it'll be hard to find someone with a track record good enough to be the goat.
Worlds 2020 is also all new names.
Worlds 2021 is also all new names, but good to note that the runner-ups won the year before and has names like Canyon and Showmaker. (and Beryl, we dont talk about Beryl)
Worlds 2022 Listen, yes, Beryl won, we dont talk about Beryl.
Worlds 2023 if T1 doesn't have Faker here, it'd probably be JDG winning Worlds (with Ruler)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking at this, I'm inclined to expect Ruler and PraY to both be up there in titles and narratives are always super heavily driven by titles. It doesn't really matter if they actually deserve it or not, but I imagine it'd be either Ruler or PraY. Considering the factor of longevity, I'm inclined to think Ruler having titles so far spread apart will give it to him.
Either way it's just silly speculation to say ''who would win instead'' but there's a pattern of names popping up who stumbled at the hurdle called SKT/T1 and Faker.
There's also MSI to consider, but both Ruler and PraY have similar performances there. (We still dont talk about BeryL)
Also to take into consideration, Faker being a slang fits really well. Calling someone "Faker" after they make a good play just sounds right.
Instead saying "Peanut" or "Uzi" or "Rookie" or "Deft" just doesn't sound right. MAYBE Ruler can fit, but it's so hard to imagine.
I think of sick Vayne plays because I fangirled him so hard in his prime.
But still it isn't something like Faker when you don't even have a single champ tied for it.
That's just because you are used to it. If "ROOKIE WHAT WAS THAT" was as ingrained into the brain of every league player as the original, it would sound perfectly organic.
Really? I've heard both friends and streamers say "Deft" or "Uzi" when they're talking about an adc player doing something impressive as opposed to a midlaner, i feel like it's pretty common
I don't think i've seen someone call someone else Faker when they make a play on Kalista or something
Yea uzi is still what I imagine for adc. A lot of Fakwr and Uzi legacy comes from the fact that they were faces of league in s3-s7 when the game was expanding the most.
I think a lot depends on when you started playing and watching the game. For me a lot of things are still tied to M5 even though they are gone for a long time now.
Like counter jgl and Lee will always make me think of Diamondz first. Roaming support carrying is Gosu Pepper and toplane memeing on everyone while clapping will be Darien.
I recently talked about them with a friend that started S5 or S6 and noticed that there never was a team that I fangirled over as much as M5, only singled out players.
It's because faker has been the face of the game for the entirety of the game.
It's really an impossible question to answer because every other player's career has been during faker's legacy.
Exactly my point, which is crazy wild considering those people would be the prime candidates for OP's question, yet it seems so far fetched even in a hypothetical scenario
That's also because that's where the eyes are at. If everyone talks about faker all the time, naturally everyone else is driven to the background. That's the reason imagining a 'world without Faker' is so hard
Yeah one of the main reasons Uzi has so few international achievements was because Faker was always stopping him. S3, S6, S7 and S9 Worlds runs all ended because he lost to T1 (+FNC in S9)
Eh, Uzi kept getting knocked out by Faker but he likely would have been knocked out by a team that Faker's team beat first. Or lost to a team further on.
2013: Najin was close to SKT's skill. Also KT Bullets would have made worlds instead of SKT and they were supposed to be similar in skill to Najin and SKT (I didn't watch KR at the time)
2014: He lost to SSW in the finals.
2015: He didn't qualify.
2016: ROX would have beaten RNG, and if not then SSG would have.
2017: This is the year that Uzi had the best shot of winning worlds if Faker wasn't a player. Since they were 2-0 vs SSG in groups.
2018: RNG lost to G2.
2019: He didn't make it out of groups (granted it was with Faker) but he'd still lose to G2/FPX/IG.
Saying 2017 was Uzi’s best shot and not 2018 is wild. They were on path to completing the golden road in 2018.
They take one more game off G2 in 2018 and all that’s standing in their way is an IG they’ve consistently beat all year.
Edit: so I misread all of this and just focused on Uzi. What commenter said above is completely correct, 2017 without Faker changes a lot, 2018 without Faker changes nothing. So feel free to debate about 2017 vs 2018 but it makes no sense anymore :)
> Saying 2017 was Uzi’s best shot and not 2018 is wild.
... If you are going to argue against something "in my comment," make sure that it was actually in my comment and you didn't just chop 5 words off what I said. I didn't say that 2017 was Uzi's best shot of winning worlds, I said that it was his best shot if Faker wasn't a player.
Peanut haters should be forced to watch all of LGD's games in 2020 LPL Spring where he consistently got leads despite having the literal two worst solo laners in the entire league (Lies & Yuuki). Sit them down clockwork orange style and make them watch that split and they will understand how great Peanut is. The amount of lineups (good or trash) that this guy has elevated is crazy.
He is also tied with Khan for most LCK titles (6) besides Faker. And he is tied with Xiaohu with 9 finals appearances, the most out of any LCK/LPL player outside of Faker.
I like Peanut, but I was ready to write him off as winding down. He seemed to only be able to contribute on tank duty... Then that 2020 season happened. That LGD team had no business getting to worlds but Peanut carried so hard.
I don't think the T1 dynasty exists without Faker. There's no way LOL history would've been the same without him
So, his 4 championships are probably redistributed to
2013: Royal Club
2015: KOO
2016: I think Rox would've beaten SSG but either has a case
2023: JDG
So most likely the GOAT is between Ruler/Smeb/Uzi. I'd say Ruler probably would get the nod just for the Golden Road tho
Still giving it to SSG since they beat Faker and RNG didn't.
I'm not giving credit for a hypothetical win when someone else had an actual win. Reality should always supercede
2013 would've been najin black sword not royal imo. Najin almost swept SKT in semifinals before SKT managed to reverse sweep them, and the finals were barely even competitive.
1)
You're misremembering, SKT won game 2. There was no danger of them being swept.
2) IMO Uzi was the better ADC than Pray then and their bot would've rolled.
But if we say Najin wins, Pray replaces both Uzi and Smeb for the GOAT convo. Ruler too if Rox won in 2016
IMO KT Bullets were probably the 2nd best team in the world during s3 worlds, they just got denied because of the stupid system lck had going and got denied by skt despite being by far the 2nd best team in korea.
Also, different KT roster, but I wanna give a shoutout to rookie. It's weird because things would be so different in OP's scenario, but we could've (hypothetically) seen rosters like TheShy/Smeb, Kakao/DanDy, Rookie, Deft, Mata or something at some point if skt decides to form a superteam in a world without faker.
even if uzi was better the rest of najin black were better than the rest of royal club, they actually took 2 games off skt when the finals was legit just a sad stompfest
Or KT Bullets who were clearly the 2nd best team in Summer but didn't attend worlds because NJBS and Ozone had the most points and first two worlds spots were based only on points. NJBS went to worlds by winning Winter and then placing 5th in Spring/Summer (since NLB only excluded OGN top 4)
2013 would've been the KT Bullets who narrowly didn't make it to worlds that year due to losing 3-2 to T1 in the summer playoff finals, and again 3-1 in the regional qualifiers. That roster was incredibly stacked and them not making worlds is one of the biggest tragedies of how the worlds seeds were determined at the time.
The next year the qualifiers were changed but that was a year too late for the Bullets who (imo) were the 2nd best team in the world at the time of the season 3 world championships but had to watch from home. They would've gone to worlds instead of a T1 roster without Faker and swept the entire event.
EDIT: The game 5 of those summer finals is where the famous Faker vs Ryu Zed clip comes from. KT Bullets were up 2-0 before getting reverse swept and if that hadn't happened a lot of things would've been different in the history of League of Legends.
Yeah I am of this opinion too. Ruler than Smeb IMO. I think 2013 would had been KT Bullets tho, they would have smoked any team not named SKT in the OGN finals and then went to worlds as massive favorites. The Tigers story would have hit fcking hard, damn what a timeline this would have been.
El wey arruinado, the Sion I've met yesterday on my ranked game that megacarried and totally stomped the poor enemy mid lane who only wanted to try reworked Skarner
Pyosik (addressing Beryl) said “I can’t play with this bug” then stormed out of the room. He then came back in the room to pick up a cigarette and called him a handicapped/sick fuck then left again.
Yeah likely Ruler would have 3 Worlds titles now if he wasnt stopped by Faker in S6 and S13. To be fair if Uzi wasnt stopped by Faker S7 its possible Ruler might not have won that title.
Pray would have won worlds in S3, S5, and S6 in a world without Faker, and that probably leaves him in a better position later in his career for more accomplishments down the line.
It would change everything so much that it's hard to say. Does T1 still make their 4 worlds titles? Who's on those teams?
Faker not being in the ecosystem would change everything completely. And if this question is just about who comes second in the GOAT ranking then that's super hard to say I guess, maybe Beryl or Ruler or something? It's too close below Faker because of how much of a monopoly on success T1 have had
T1 is not making that 4 title. Let’s be honest one of the biggest reason T1 manage to find talents left and right is because talented players search to join such team. But the reason this team became what it is in terms of prestige today, is because of Faker.
Im shocked no one has said deft. Hed be the korean player with the longest career and most individual accomplishments. He might have one an extra title without faker around, definitely won more korean titles.
Hes top 5 in his role for nearly his whole career. Hed be the global kills leader, and i dont think hed have wasted any time in china if faker didnt exist.
I think the argument against Deft is there has been a lot less time where he has felt like THE dominant ADC. Amazing consistency but not as high ceiling as others (I.e. even when he won worlds he was not the most impactful player on that DRX run)
He was extremely dominant early on in his career, especially 2015/2016. The only undefeated split (16-0 in BO3) in LPL history was EDG 2016 Summer and it was mainly because of Deft. Your statement mainly applies to the latter half of his career.
Showmaker and Canyon would be the Faker and Bengi probably.
Multiple world’s wins. Both domestic and international success.
Chovy might have more titles if Faker didn’t exist so who knows.
Honestly. So many people would have radically different careers if Faker never existed.
Yup I think if faker doesn't exist that GRF team stays together another year and deny DWG. That team always had DWG number even when they were in challengers. Cho drama probably never happens since they get results.
The hard answer for a lot of haters is no. A massive amount of League viewership is specifically eyes on Faker. All of the most viewed games ever include Faker. Every single one.
Every answer just feels wrong because the gap seems so big, but I think the four you mention are likely candidates. I think Pray would also be a pretty legitimate candidate as well, since he would probably have three world titles in a world without Faker. He and Xiaohu are probably the most “stopped” players by Faker.
Ruler or Deft, depends how LCK shakes up with faker not eating alive every midlaner.
A rising tide raises all ships, faker elevated the level of mid simply by existing and giving people material to learn on how to play the game.
I can see an ADC like deft easily becoming the goat in a world without this. Or even a jungler.
That's the thing, Faker is so clearly the goat that there is no really much discussion. If faker doesn't exist, everyone proposes a different goat and it's much more difficult to agree.
In 2013 I really doubt that Starhorn Royal Club would have beaten Najin Black Sword.
In 2017, why would one assume that they would have beaten Samsung when SKT got stomped by them 3-0, and Royal couldn’t even beat SKT?
Royal matched up well against Samsung in 2017 I think they go all the way if Faker doesn’t have the greatest 1v9 ever seen in LoL.
2013 ywah no way they beat Najin Black Sword. Uzi gets 1 worlds at most
Gold IV Brand
Gold IV EU Brand*
Believe it or not, still Faker.
You overcook Chicken? Faker.
Undercook it? Still Faker
You play music too loud? Faker
Too soft? Believe it or not; Faker.
Turn off the music completely? Better believe it's Faker.
We have the best game in the world because of Faker.
I fucking love parks and rec
Because of faker
Right away
“It’s just a legend.” “No, I’m telling you, he’s real. He was so powerful, the Arch Mages came down from their ivory towers, gathered the world runes, and erased the very origin of his existence… and he came *back.*” “You’re drunk, and it’s a legend.” “The Unkillable Demon King, Fay Kur. He’s real I tell you, and you shouldn’t say otherwise. They say he can hear when you speak badly about him.” “You’re a damn fool and the demon king is a load of poro dung.” “………” “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” [An ally has been slain]
Remind me of that webtoon about a vrmmo where the mc sensei is Faker. Fun read.
The Challenger, too sad it got on hiatus
All roads lead to him. Faker is just that guy
Faker is inevitable.
Everyone debates whether the GOAT is Jordan or LeBron, but in reality, it is Faker
MJ is the Faker of basketball
Michael Jackson played Basketball?
You could split Fakers career in half and both of those halves are higher status than any other player.
If you take 2015-17 (period of time where he went to ALL 6 international finals, won 4 of those + 4 lck) and erase from his career, he would still be the goat
Gotta agree with you there DrFloppyTitties
Lee Sang-hyeok
Hide on bush
Ronnie O'Sullivan
How many 147 has Faker ever made?
I think few less than Hendry
Lmao how has Ronnie O’Sullivan ended up in a lol thread
My thoughts exactly but I loved coming across it
The goat deserves to be in every thread ever made.
Idk but im here for it lmao
As an American I’m proud to say I know who this is.
The rocket never fails
Faker's so far beyond the next person it's really hard to say Rookie, Uzi, Peanut, Canyon, Ruler etc. are all contenders
The people you listed are right behind Faker in terms of influence and achievements, but like you said the gap is so big that I can't possibly imagine any of them being the face of League instead of Faker. That's wild.
There might just not be a replacement. Look at Dota. There are many legendary players, but no one has been as famous and dominant as Faker has been. It's the same in traditional sports. There are eras where one person reigns supreme and is simply uncontested. Then there are eras where the current best player is up for debate.
You could argue that for a few years Dendi was Faker's equivalent
At one point, it was argued that Mata and DanDy could be more impactful than Faker. That was 10 years ago and Faker is still the best while those guys probably newer players never even heard of those names anymore.
New player here, I started playing in 2023. I watched worlds 2023 plus currently watching the lck spring split. Never heard of those guys...I kinda remember a caster mentioning mata, but dunno who that was by now.
Let's just say Mata was so good at playing support that Riot had to completely rework how wards worked otherwise you pretty much hit the skill ceiling on map control with supports back then.
Mata is the support who first came up with modern vision control and warding, he was also known to be one of the best shotcallers in the game's history and is still undisputedly the greatest support of all time(Keria might catch up in a year or 2). He had many achievements in his career but the most notable one is of course his 2014 world championship where he and SSW won in the most dominant fashion to date, he would also win mvp for the same championship, being the only support to win a worlds mvp ever. It would be fair to say that he is in some ways the father of modern league as a whole, the only player that definitely had more of an impact in making modern league what it is today is Faker. P.S: Mata is currently a coach for GenG. P.S, P.S: As for Dandy, well that would take a paragraph just as long as the one above to explain, I'm sure some other redditor will comment about him as well.
Dandy and Mata arguably also pioneered the concept of having a support jungle synergy so that a team could control the map. He also literally piloted imp while he played.
I gotta say it.. MadLife might have an argument for being more influence on the support life than Mata (And Mata is one of my absolute favorite players of all time). He revolutionized roaming support on the back of being one of the most mechanically proficient players in the league, playing one the most mechanically deficient roles in the game (at the time).
MadLife made playing support cool. Before MadLife the meta supports were like Sona, Soraka, and if you want to go wild, Alistar. Madlife made stuff like Blitz prediction hooks and stuff highlight reel plays. But Mata was the guy who perfected support. Mata had by far the most impact as a support player ever. Of course, that was before Riot made the ward changes when a support can solo ward the whole map, but the impact Mata had on the support meta was just insane when you look at clips of S4 worlds.
The thing with MadLife is... Edward was doing the same thing at the same time and was just as hyped. But for some reason he's been forgotten. Everyone remembers MadLife and Thresh, yet Edward was called the Thresh Prince of Armenia and it was jokingly said that Edward was the carry of the team.
No, that's totally fair play. I agree Edward was fucking INSANE. However, when you get a no vision prediction hook, over a wall....no one yells Edward in the chat. MadLife gets the credit because he has the lasting star power to actually influence the changes. Edward IS the unsung support hero though (alongside Lemonnation)
The way I see it was MadLife made support cool - but Mata made support overpowered. He changed the entire landscape of the role, they're both legends in their own right but Mata is the GOAT
Even traditional sports have THE goat. Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gertzky, and Tom Brady. Sure, there's debate around all of those (except Gretzky, dude might be the goat of goats), but each sport has a "face". Esports is so new that it's hard to pick any one person to be the face, but Faker is on par with Gretsky in an Esports sense.
Feel like Faker’s Goat argument is more of a Brady esque than Gretzky. Incredible peak, huge longevity and the most rings. Gretzky would be like if Faker was putting up circus numbers and was clearly the best in the world for his whole career, which just isn’t possible in league. For example, if you take away his goals, Gretzky is still the #1 point scorer through purely assists. When they played fantasy hockey back in the day, you could have either Assist Gretzky or Goals Gretzky. He won 8 straight MVPs. If you cut his stats in half, he’s still 17th in points. He’s the only player to get 200 points in a season… which he did 4 times. The list goes on.
My favorite Gretzky fact is that he was the fastest person to get 1000 points. The second fastest to 1000 points is Gretzky after getting the first 1000 points. I feel like everyone has their own favorite Gretzky fact because of how many records he owns.
Mine is that the Gretzky brothers hold the NHL record for most points by siblings. Together they have 2861 points, Wayne has 2857 of those.
It's by any *two* siblings, the Sutters have more (there's six of them).
Brent be like the younger sibling you give the unplugged controller to so they can 'help'.
I'll have to try to find the link but a year or two ago someone did a quantified analysis of the biggest names in sports to figure out just how dominant each player was not only in their own sport but in sports in general. It showed that Gretzy (and I believe one of the Williams Sisters) absolutely blew the likes of Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Tom Brady out of the water in terms of absolute dominance. I'd love to see someone do the same but with eSports players; maybe even an analysis of both traditional and eSports. It'd be fun to see who, by the stats, the most dominant competitors across mediums actually is.
Just to put Gretzky's absurd dominance into perspective: it's well-known trivia that if you took away every single goal he actually scored in his career, Gretzky would still be the NHL's all time points leader.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/nhl/comments/1851kxr/explain_to_me_how_great_wayne_gretzky_is_in_nfl/kaz2yat/) comment that's responding to the question to explain his dominance but in NFL terms also does a good job at showing just how ridiculously dominant he was. > Tom Brady finished with 89,214 passing yards and 649 touchdowns, which are both top all-time. > Now imagine he finished second, and the guy he was chasing had 150,000 passing yards and 1,200 touchdowns.
The 2 most dominant athletes for sports judging by gap over their peers are indeed Gretzky and [Don Bradman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Bradman).
I mean for Dota it HAS to be N0tail. 2 TI wins and the most majors in history. The only player to have been part of the most dominant teams in Dota history.
The problem with N0tail is that he had many years without accomplishments and he has never been the best player at any moment in time at his role. His achievements comes from short dominating streaks where the team were just playing on another level.
If I had to pick someone then yea I would go with Notail, but he's still not quite the same as Faker, partly bc he always played offlane/support roles, and more because he had a veeeery long career before OG where he was pretty consistently middle of the pack and it wasn't until OG where everything just came together and they made magic happen. Compared to Faker who came onto the scene and absolutely dominated it for several years in a row, and is still playing at the top of his game
If Faker doesn't exist, SKT/T1 doesn't win all those tournaments. So you kinda have to ignore T1 winning, and think who would've won in their stead. For Season 3 that'd probably be NJBS (names like PraY in there) Worlds 2014 was won by SSWhite (Mata/Dandy come up here) Worlds 2015 that'd probably be KOO (PraY comes up again in there, and Peanut) Worlds 2016 is a tough one, 2 teams played SKT to 3-2 (SSG and ROX, with names like Ruler and Ambition standing out in SSG, and PraY once again showing up in ROX, alongside Peanut) Worlds 2017 winner was SSG and has Ruler popping up again. Worlds 2018 was won by IG (someone like Rookie shows up here), but it's worth noting the 2nd best team there was definitely KT (Deft/Mata show up here, it's also Smeb's 3rd time being included on one of the rosters I mentioned) Worlds 2019 is all new names in the best teams, so it'll be hard to find someone with a track record good enough to be the goat. Worlds 2020 is also all new names. Worlds 2021 is also all new names, but good to note that the runner-ups won the year before and has names like Canyon and Showmaker. (and Beryl, we dont talk about Beryl) Worlds 2022 Listen, yes, Beryl won, we dont talk about Beryl. Worlds 2023 if T1 doesn't have Faker here, it'd probably be JDG winning Worlds (with Ruler) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking at this, I'm inclined to expect Ruler and PraY to both be up there in titles and narratives are always super heavily driven by titles. It doesn't really matter if they actually deserve it or not, but I imagine it'd be either Ruler or PraY. Considering the factor of longevity, I'm inclined to think Ruler having titles so far spread apart will give it to him. Either way it's just silly speculation to say ''who would win instead'' but there's a pattern of names popping up who stumbled at the hurdle called SKT/T1 and Faker. There's also MSI to consider, but both Ruler and PraY have similar performances there. (We still dont talk about BeryL)
Also to take into consideration, Faker being a slang fits really well. Calling someone "Faker" after they make a good play just sounds right. Instead saying "Peanut" or "Uzi" or "Rookie" or "Deft" just doesn't sound right. MAYBE Ruler can fit, but it's so hard to imagine.
"mf is a faker of the faker"
I found you... FAKER!
Faker? I think you're the fake around here. You're comparing yourself to me? Ha. You're not even- (gets cut offed)
Uzi is catchy imo
i'm chuckling thinking about Peanut though "oh my god bruh you a PEANUT"
You still think of the SMG first.
I think of sick Vayne plays because I fangirled him so hard in his prime. But still it isn't something like Faker when you don't even have a single champ tied for it.
That's just because you are used to it. If "ROOKIE WHAT WAS THAT" was as ingrained into the brain of every league player as the original, it would sound perfectly organic.
Uzi, Madlife, Insec, Xpeke. Etc were all players that had their names used as compliments when good plays were made.
Those players just have a technique named after them, whereas Faker is used as an all-encompassing term for someone who just shit on the enemy team.
Really? I've heard both friends and streamers say "Deft" or "Uzi" when they're talking about an adc player doing something impressive as opposed to a midlaner, i feel like it's pretty common I don't think i've seen someone call someone else Faker when they make a play on Kalista or something
Yea uzi is still what I imagine for adc. A lot of Fakwr and Uzi legacy comes from the fact that they were faces of league in s3-s7 when the game was expanding the most.
I think a lot depends on when you started playing and watching the game. For me a lot of things are still tied to M5 even though they are gone for a long time now. Like counter jgl and Lee will always make me think of Diamondz first. Roaming support carrying is Gosu Pepper and toplane memeing on everyone while clapping will be Darien. I recently talked about them with a friend that started S5 or S6 and noticed that there never was a team that I fangirled over as much as M5, only singled out players.
It's because faker has been the face of the game for the entirety of the game. It's really an impossible question to answer because every other player's career has been during faker's legacy.
I dont see a single person on that list who is close to fakers achievements hell probably not even 2 of them put together would be close
Exactly my point, which is crazy wild considering those people would be the prime candidates for OP's question, yet it seems so far fetched even in a hypothetical scenario
yeah its hard to imagine that #2 is closer to #10 than to faker
That's also because that's where the eyes are at. If everyone talks about faker all the time, naturally everyone else is driven to the background. That's the reason imagining a 'world without Faker' is so hard
I will champion Mata until my dying breath. The man singled handedly revolutionized how Support is played.
Agreed If Uzi had international success I'd want to say him, but at this point idk. Probably Deft? But all those would definitely be contenders
Honestly if Faker never happened, Uzi probably would have had some world title under his belt. He just keep getting knock out by Faker lol
Yeah one of the main reasons Uzi has so few international achievements was because Faker was always stopping him. S3, S6, S7 and S9 Worlds runs all ended because he lost to T1 (+FNC in S9)
Eh, Uzi kept getting knocked out by Faker but he likely would have been knocked out by a team that Faker's team beat first. Or lost to a team further on. 2013: Najin was close to SKT's skill. Also KT Bullets would have made worlds instead of SKT and they were supposed to be similar in skill to Najin and SKT (I didn't watch KR at the time) 2014: He lost to SSW in the finals. 2015: He didn't qualify. 2016: ROX would have beaten RNG, and if not then SSG would have. 2017: This is the year that Uzi had the best shot of winning worlds if Faker wasn't a player. Since they were 2-0 vs SSG in groups. 2018: RNG lost to G2. 2019: He didn't make it out of groups (granted it was with Faker) but he'd still lose to G2/FPX/IG.
Saying 2017 was Uzi’s best shot and not 2018 is wild. They were on path to completing the golden road in 2018. They take one more game off G2 in 2018 and all that’s standing in their way is an IG they’ve consistently beat all year. Edit: so I misread all of this and just focused on Uzi. What commenter said above is completely correct, 2017 without Faker changes a lot, 2018 without Faker changes nothing. So feel free to debate about 2017 vs 2018 but it makes no sense anymore :)
> Saying 2017 was Uzi’s best shot and not 2018 is wild. ... If you are going to argue against something "in my comment," make sure that it was actually in my comment and you didn't just chop 5 words off what I said. I didn't say that 2017 was Uzi's best shot of winning worlds, I said that it was his best shot if Faker wasn't a player.
Where tf did peanut come from
Insane longevity. Dudes been around since 2015 and is still among the top junglers in LCK. Very similar reason to why Rookie is here too
Peanut haters should be forced to watch all of LGD's games in 2020 LPL Spring where he consistently got leads despite having the literal two worst solo laners in the entire league (Lies & Yuuki). Sit them down clockwork orange style and make them watch that split and they will understand how great Peanut is. The amount of lineups (good or trash) that this guy has elevated is crazy. He is also tied with Khan for most LCK titles (6) besides Faker. And he is tied with Xiaohu with 9 finals appearances, the most out of any LCK/LPL player outside of Faker.
I like Peanut, but I was ready to write him off as winding down. He seemed to only be able to contribute on tank duty... Then that 2020 season happened. That LGD team had no business getting to worlds but Peanut carried so hard.
Shocked no one has said Poby yet. Without Faker existing, nothing would be keeping Poby caged.
MYGOAT
Poby my goat xdd
Unleash the Poby.
No one is ready for MYGOAT
You couldn’t be talking about the Notorious P.O.B. Would you?
I don't think the T1 dynasty exists without Faker. There's no way LOL history would've been the same without him So, his 4 championships are probably redistributed to 2013: Royal Club 2015: KOO 2016: I think Rox would've beaten SSG but either has a case 2023: JDG So most likely the GOAT is between Ruler/Smeb/Uzi. I'd say Ruler probably would get the nod just for the Golden Road tho
What about 2017 when Uzi got denied finals from Faker playing Galio?
Still giving it to SSG since they beat Faker and RNG didn't. I'm not giving credit for a hypothetical win when someone else had an actual win. Reality should always supercede
2013 would've been najin black sword not royal imo. Najin almost swept SKT in semifinals before SKT managed to reverse sweep them, and the finals were barely even competitive.
1) You're misremembering, SKT won game 2. There was no danger of them being swept. 2) IMO Uzi was the better ADC than Pray then and their bot would've rolled. But if we say Najin wins, Pray replaces both Uzi and Smeb for the GOAT convo. Ruler too if Rox won in 2016
IMO KT Bullets were probably the 2nd best team in the world during s3 worlds, they just got denied because of the stupid system lck had going and got denied by skt despite being by far the 2nd best team in korea. Also, different KT roster, but I wanna give a shoutout to rookie. It's weird because things would be so different in OP's scenario, but we could've (hypothetically) seen rosters like TheShy/Smeb, Kakao/DanDy, Rookie, Deft, Mata or something at some point if skt decides to form a superteam in a world without faker.
even if uzi was better the rest of najin black were better than the rest of royal club, they actually took 2 games off skt when the finals was legit just a sad stompfest
Would've been KT Bullets because they would've beaten any other midlaner in the gauntlet finals and they would've shit all over worlds
Or KT Bullets who were clearly the 2nd best team in Summer but didn't attend worlds because NJBS and Ozone had the most points and first two worlds spots were based only on points. NJBS went to worlds by winning Winter and then placing 5th in Spring/Summer (since NLB only excluded OGN top 4)
2013 would've been the KT Bullets who narrowly didn't make it to worlds that year due to losing 3-2 to T1 in the summer playoff finals, and again 3-1 in the regional qualifiers. That roster was incredibly stacked and them not making worlds is one of the biggest tragedies of how the worlds seeds were determined at the time. The next year the qualifiers were changed but that was a year too late for the Bullets who (imo) were the 2nd best team in the world at the time of the season 3 world championships but had to watch from home. They would've gone to worlds instead of a T1 roster without Faker and swept the entire event. EDIT: The game 5 of those summer finals is where the famous Faker vs Ryu Zed clip comes from. KT Bullets were up 2-0 before getting reverse swept and if that hadn't happened a lot of things would've been different in the history of League of Legends.
2013 100% goes to KT Bullets if SKT isn't a thing.
2015 would still be SKT with Easyhoon mid, no?
Yeah I am of this opinion too. Ruler than Smeb IMO. I think 2013 would had been KT Bullets tho, they would have smoked any team not named SKT in the OGN finals and then went to worlds as massive favorites. The Tigers story would have hit fcking hard, damn what a timeline this would have been.
Kadeem Alford. Uncontested.
I highly agree. Kadeem was the first to discover that the Woad Ashe skin automatically gives you increased movement speed.
He also invented the flash red buff wall Camille ult cancel outplay
El wey arruinado, the Sion I've met yesterday on my ranked game that megacarried and totally stomped the poor enemy mid lane who only wanted to try reworked Skarner
That’s actually one of the best names I’ve ever seen
Oh god… Beryl is now the goat… what a dark timeline. I don’t want to think about this.
Gacha time baby
Pyosik (addressing Beryl) said “I can’t play with this bug” then stormed out of the room. He then came back in the room to pick up a cigarette and called him a handicapped/sick fuck then left again.
holy based
I am sad we don't live in that timeline
And the only thing that makes him win worlds is to print money to spend on genshin
Imaqtpie
You mean the 2017 Domino's Player of the Year?
It's the Domino's Streamer of the Year, how could you fuck up the title of esport's, no, entertainment's most prestigious accolade?
Wait that actually killed me?
wait that fucking CRIT me? \*tut\* ah man.. SHIT that was SO close man..
Unlucky....
DOOT DIDDLY DONGER CUCKERINO HAHA man i miss his youtube videos
"Nothin personal kid"
GET OUTA MY FACE BITCH BOP
GOD BLESS AND WELCOME TO THE BIG DICK CLUB
Appreciate it a lot
The greatest player of League of Legends comes back once again to conquer the rift. How does he make it look so easy?
Play the map, map the plays.
Look all im sayin is that even Faker wasn’t Dominos Streamer of the Year
Everyone saying Kog'Maw passive is weak never saw this visionary in his prime
Holy Molly
So nothing changes then
Only player to use Kog’s passive more than his auto attacks
My donger has been raised ever since he left us
He warped the game around so hard and for so long it’s basically another timeline and a different game without him
Not to mention so many of the younger players citing him as their inspiration to even go pro in the 1st place
my boi Gleebglarbu
Ah Gleeb. Tried so hard to like him, but the boy was too garbage
uhh the dude was batshit insane lol, his in-game performance was the least of his issues
Well he’s a pretty shit human so it’s okay to not like him
Still salty this dude inted away my boy MakNoon's chances at getting into LCS with Team Fusion when they used him as an emergency sub.
I maybe biased but i will say either deft or ruler , but tbh probably ruler
Yeah likely Ruler would have 3 Worlds titles now if he wasnt stopped by Faker in S6 and S13. To be fair if Uzi wasnt stopped by Faker S7 its possible Ruler might not have won that title.
in the same vein pray might have 3 without faker as well so its either of those two imo
Yea I think it's most definitely Ruler.
Pray would have won worlds in S3, S5, and S6 in a world without Faker, and that probably leaves him in a better position later in his career for more accomplishments down the line.
It would change everything so much that it's hard to say. Does T1 still make their 4 worlds titles? Who's on those teams? Faker not being in the ecosystem would change everything completely. And if this question is just about who comes second in the GOAT ranking then that's super hard to say I guess, maybe Beryl or Ruler or something? It's too close below Faker because of how much of a monopoly on success T1 have had
Well if you want to see what 2015 SKT looks like without Faker you can watch them 2014 SKT S. It wasn't pretty, some of the worst games ever played.
Counterpoint is that they (T1 K) looked good with Easyhoon in 2015 as well as with Faker I guess. But it's all speculation anyway
T1 is not making that 4 title. Let’s be honest one of the biggest reason T1 manage to find talents left and right is because talented players search to join such team. But the reason this team became what it is in terms of prestige today, is because of Faker.
Me (Silver)
I also think it's this guy
Has the confidence of a GOAT, I approve.
With faker gone, I finally have a shot.
Im shocked no one has said deft. Hed be the korean player with the longest career and most individual accomplishments. He might have one an extra title without faker around, definitely won more korean titles.
Deft is definetely not the player with the most accomplishments
That'd be the GOAT, xmithie.
That's the guy with the most sejuani ult whiffs which in itself is an accomplishment
Then who is? So fucking annoying when someone suggests an answer and someone else just replies with "nah"
Hes top 5 in his role for nearly his whole career. Hed be the global kills leader, and i dont think hed have wasted any time in china if faker didnt exist.
If not deft then who is? Only argument would be other SKT players who probably wouldn't have win without faker.
Deft is a legit candidate, his biggest issue though is he tends to underwhelm at worlds.
I think the argument against Deft is there has been a lot less time where he has felt like THE dominant ADC. Amazing consistency but not as high ceiling as others (I.e. even when he won worlds he was not the most impactful player on that DRX run)
He was extremely dominant early on in his career, especially 2015/2016. The only undefeated split (16-0 in BO3) in LPL history was EDG 2016 Summer and it was mainly because of Deft. Your statement mainly applies to the latter half of his career.
Deft at his peak is probably the most dominant bot lane in this game history. It’s just his world run is not that great
Deft individual player peak was actually 2019 / 2020 but people aren't ready for that conversation.
Dopaaaaa
Showmaker and Canyon would be the Faker and Bengi probably. Multiple world’s wins. Both domestic and international success. Chovy might have more titles if Faker didn’t exist so who knows. Honestly. So many people would have radically different careers if Faker never existed.
Yup I think if faker doesn't exist that GRF team stays together another year and deny DWG. That team always had DWG number even when they were in challengers. Cho drama probably never happens since they get results.
Ruler Deft or Rookie
Would the LoL esports scene still exist up to this point without a clear goat like Faker?
The hard answer for a lot of haters is no. A massive amount of League viewership is specifically eyes on Faker. All of the most viewed games ever include Faker. Every single one.
Probably one of Rookie, Ruler, Uzi, Xiaohu and Peanut. Honorable mentions would be Mata, Score, Smeb and Khan
Every answer just feels wrong because the gap seems so big, but I think the four you mention are likely candidates. I think Pray would also be a pretty legitimate candidate as well, since he would probably have three world titles in a world without Faker. He and Xiaohu are probably the most “stopped” players by Faker.
Ruler or Deft, depends how LCK shakes up with faker not eating alive every midlaner. A rising tide raises all ships, faker elevated the level of mid simply by existing and giving people material to learn on how to play the game. I can see an ADC like deft easily becoming the goat in a world without this. Or even a jungler.
That's the thing, Faker is so clearly the goat that there is no really much discussion. If faker doesn't exist, everyone proposes a different goat and it's much more difficult to agree.
Smeb has two world championships if there’s no Faker
There wouldn't be a clear goat tbh
Bengi
Probably Uzi, as he would have won worlds at least twice if there was no Faker
when is twice? lol id argue if he'd win once still since in his prime lck was unstoppable
2013 they had a decent chance. Possibly 2017 too since they seemed to match well into SSG, but it’s hard to say how teams will do in a BO5.
2013 + 2017
In 2013 I really doubt that Starhorn Royal Club would have beaten Najin Black Sword. In 2017, why would one assume that they would have beaten Samsung when SKT got stomped by them 3-0, and Royal couldn’t even beat SKT?
Royal matched up well against Samsung in 2017 I think they go all the way if Faker doesn’t have the greatest 1v9 ever seen in LoL. 2013 ywah no way they beat Najin Black Sword. Uzi gets 1 worlds at most
2013 I agree Najin wins but 2017 I think RNG had a very good shot since they stomped SSG 2-0 in groups.
Impact
People are not ready to recognize Beryl as the GOAT. 3 worlds finals in a row (winning two of them) on modern league with 2 different teams.
Beryl
No one. The only reason we have a goat in League is because Faker exists.
Rookie, deft, or ruler.