Faker is arguably the best player in League of Legends. Together with his team, he has won the World Championship 6 times since 2013. However, 8 years ago, he thought his career was over at that time.
Why did Faker think that 8 years ago? The magazine Fortune Korea published an interview with the LoL legend Faker, in which he talked about his career. The interview was translated by a Reddit user. A major theme there was the duration of careers in esports.
For Faker, this was also a major topic 8 years ago. During that time, he caught himself thinking about whether this was the moment he would be outplayed by other players. Faker went on to say the following:
Back then, the perception was very strong that careers in esports are particularly short, and I felt like I couldn’t escape this trend. Nevertheless, a part of me wondered: Is it really right to be pushed aside helplessly just because of my age? Can’t I prove that this doesn’t have to be the case? Can’t I just keep going longer and continue to prove myself? From that moment on, I trained even harder.
How long had Faker been playing at that time? Faker started his career in 2013 and had already won the World Championship 3 times by 2018, the year when Faker doubted himself. According to Fortune Korea, the average duration of an esports career is almost 5 years.
Faker reveals his secret
What is Faker’s tip for a longer career? In the same interview, a hobby of Faker outside of LoL is addressed: reading. He was specifically asked what the reason was for starting to read so many books.
The answer was directly related to the duration of his career: he was curious about how he could prolong his career and improve his own performance. Particularly scientific books about neuroscience or the human body were very interesting to Faker.
The professional further said that the knowledge from the books helped him calm his nerves, regain focus, and approach situations more calmly.
What are Faker’s favorite books? The X user Ashley Kang created a website where she listed all the books that Faker mentioned in a stream from 2023. Additionally, there is a complexity rating and a small comment from Faker about the books.
You can find the list on the page created by Ashley Kang fan-leaf-9ae.notion.site. Besides some fictional books, the list is filled with scientific books.
Particularly the book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” is, according to Faker’s comment, a must-read, meaning a book that everyone should read. It discusses the development of humanity, but this list also includes works that deal with various topics of human psychology.
Whether all the reading has really made a difference is, of course, not provable, but Faker has still been the best LoL player in the world since 2018. If you want to learn from him, we have compiled 5 gaming tips from the legendary Faker: 5 gaming tips from Faker personally that will help you improve in LoL
