C9 have the chance to break one of Faker’s oldest LoL Worlds streaks in Swiss stage

Across his entire 11-season career, legendary T1 mid laner Faker has never lost a game to a North American team at the League of Legends World Championship. Cloud9 are looking to permanently alter that. 

The second day of the Worlds Swiss stage wrapped up earlier today and teams were drawn into the next stage of the bracket. T1 and Cloud9 were both 1-1 after the second day of play, and as fate would have it, the two legacy orgs drew each other for their third round match. And although both teams are sitting with even records going into this match, it’s hard to bet against Faker when he’s staring down a North American team on the other side of the Rift—especially under the bright lights of the Worlds stage.  

At Worlds, Faker holds an all-time record of 12-0 against NA teams, dating back to his first win against an LCS squad at Worlds 2013: a 34-minute group stage victory over TSM that included an early-game Riven mid solo kill against Reginald. 

Most recently, Team Liquid came pretty close to ending Faker’s streak against NA teams earlier this week. In the opening game of the Swiss stage, Liquid had T1 on the ropes, claiming a late-game Baron buff and teamfight win in the game’s fleeting moments, but they ended up on the losing end of a forced skirmish that resulted in a game-winning push for T1. 

If we extrapolate Faker’s all-time record against NA teams to include matches that he’s played against them outside of Worlds, he’s a staggering 27-1. That number includes tournaments such as the Mid-Season Invitational, the 2014 All-Star tournament, and several IEM tournaments in the mid-2010s. The only loss that Faker has ever suffered against a North American team came at MSI 2016 when CLG took down SKT in a hard-fought group stage match. 

T1 won both of their matches against Cloud9 at last year’s World Championship. Photo by Colin Young-Wolff via Riot Games

Against C9 in particular, Faker has never lost. He has a 7-0 record against C9 dating back to 2014, and the only NA team that he has more individual wins against is TSM, whom he has eight over. 

On Sunday, Oct. 22, C9 have the chance to cut down Faker and end his unbeaten streak against NA teams at Worlds. They’ll kick off that day’s schedule in a best-of-one game.