Faker and Jensen’s rivalry in the mid lane dates back to the golden League of Legends ages, where both the players have faced each other many times, leading to only one outcome—Faker’s all-out domination.
Out of the last 10 encounters, Faker has won all of them and Jensen is yet to win a single match against the Korean Azir. The rivalry started with Jensen sending a tweet in 2016 before playing Faker saying, “can’t wait to clap faker :D.” That tweet has aged terribly, as T1 stomped over FlyQuest in record time, completing LoL’s fastest-ever international best-of-three at the 2024 Mid-Season Invitational in Chengdu, China.
FlyQuest’s current mid laner, Jensen opened up about the rivalry in an interview with PentaQ Esports.
“I played against Faker many times but the results seem to always be the same,” Jensen said. “As for what’s different this time (facing T1). I don’t know. I feel like in the past, many years ago, when you would play against the best Korean and Chinese teams, you wouldn’t really have a chance.” The skill gap between the Eastern and Western League teams Jensen talks about is easily visible in their record against each other.
“But I think nowadays the game is more figured out,” Jensen continued. “I kind of thought we did have a chance. But I guess really… we didn’t. They were just very clutch and punished us on every mistake we made really well.” T1’s flawless performance shut off the visitors from making an impact on the series entirely, and Jensen summed up their performance with perhaps one of the game’s biggest understatements: “I guess they are just really good.”
To add insult to injury, Jensen and Faker have similar most-played champions in the mid lane. According to gol.gg, Jensen has played 101 matches on Orianna with a win rate of 74.3 percent, and Azir is his second-most played champion. In Faker’s case, Azir is his most-played champion with 161 matches under his belt securing a win rate of 67.1 percent—and Orianna follows the champion.
The gap between Faker and Jensen is getting wider by the day as the Western teams still try to find the secret to defeating Eastern League teams.
