Faker missed the LCK season due to a hand injury before helping T1 defeat Kwangdong Freecs on Aug. 2. But owing to his replacement Yoon “Poby” Sung-won, the League of Legends GOAT actually gained greater knowledge of the game during his month-long absence from competition.
Faker was helping T1 behind the scenes during his injury and this period allowed the superstar to get a new perspective on the mid lane after watching over Poby. Although T1 only won one match while playing with Poby, Faker gave a shoutout to his substitute following the 2-0 victory against KDF on Aug. 2.
“I realized that Poby, who played in my place, has many strengths,” Faker said in a post-match interview. “Also, I’ve learned some things about laning in the mid lane from the process of communicating to Poby. I could think alone about the gameplay that my team needed a third-person’s perspective. There were also things I saw that I hadn’t seen before while I was playing.”
Faker also said Poby is a “team player” and that he’s able to execute plays with his teammates. Poby had big shoes to fill in his matches with the first team and practically had a baptism by fire with the LCK playoffs ahead of him.
The young gun averaged 1.6 KDA and 55.5 percent kill participation in the 18 games he played with T1’s first team in the 2023 LCK Summer Split, according to stats site Oracles Elixir. Poby’s average KDA is significantly lower than Faker’s (3.8), but that’s understandable considering how important he is to the team.
Faker and T1 will return to action against SANDBOX Gaming on Aug. 4