The SKT T1 Dynasty: Three World Titles in Four Years, 2013-2017
Before T1's three-peat there was SK Telecom T1, the team that made Korea the centre of League of Legends. How it won three Worlds and two MSIs, and how the run ended in the Bird's Nest.
In the autumn of 2013, a Korean team with a 17-year-old mid laner beat China's Royal Club 3-0 in Los Angeles to win the League of Legends World Championship. More than 32 million people watched. Over the next four years, that team, SK Telecom T1, won two more world titles and two Mid-Season Invitationals, and turned "SKT" into the most famous three letters in esports.
The modern T1 has since won three Worlds in a row, from 2023 to 2025. But the first dynasty set the standard. Here is how it was built, how it won, and how it ended.
Built by a telecom giant, ready by 2013
The organisation is older than League. It began in 2002 as Team Orion, a StarCraft team founded by Lim "BoxeR" Yo-hwan, one of the first superstars of Korean esports. SK Telecom began sponsoring it in April 2004, and it became one of the pillars of the StarCraft Proleague, with KT's team as its great rival.
When SK Telecom moved into League of Legends, it signed a teenager from Korea's solo queue: Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok. He made his debut on April 6, 2013, with a solo kill on Ambition, one of Korea's best mid laners.
The breakthrough was immediate. In the 2013 summer final, the team, playing as SK Telecom T1 K, beat KT Rolster 3-2, a series remembered for Faker's one-on-one outplay of KT's mid laner Ryu.
At Worlds 2013, SKT finished the group stage 7-1, beat Gamania Bears 2-0 in the quarterfinals and survived a 3-2 semifinal against fellow Koreans NaJin Black Sword. The final against Royal Club was one-sided: 3-0. The audience was record-breaking, with a peak of 8.5 million concurrent viewers, and it confirmed that the centre of the game had moved to Korea.
2015: the near-perfect team
In 2014 Samsung White won Worlds in Seoul, and SKT came back with a new-look line-up. The 2015 team of MaRin (top), Bengi (jungle), Faker (mid), Bang (ADC) and Wolf (support) may be the most dominant team the event has seen.
At Worlds 2015 in Europe, SKT went 6-0 in its group, swept ahq 3-0 in the quarterfinals and Origen 3-0 in the semifinals, and beat KOO Tigers 3-1 in the final at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin on October 31. The only game it lost in the whole tournament came in that final. Top laner MaRin was MVP, the team took home $1 million, and SKT became the first organisation to win Worlds twice. The final was watched by 36 million people.
2016: back-to-back
In 2016 SKT added the Mid-Season Invitational, then went to Worlds in the United States with most of its 2015 champions still on the roster. It went 5-1 in its group, beat Royal Never Give Up 3-1 in Chicago, and then played what many consider the best series of the era: a 3-2 semifinal win over ROX Tigers at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The final against Samsung Galaxy at Staples Center on October 29, in front of nearly 20,000 fans, was the first Worlds final ever to go five games. SKT won 3-2, Faker was named MVP for the first time, and the team became the first back-to-back world champions. Its 40% share of a $6.7 million prize pool was $2,028,000.
2017: the last MSI and the Bird's Nest
SKT won MSI 2017 too, beating G2 Esports 3-1 in the final, and arrived at Worlds 2017 in China chasing a third straight title. It got as far as the final again, after a tense 3-2 semifinal win over Royal Never Give Up.
On November 4, 2017, at the Beijing National Stadium, built for the 2008 Olympics, Samsung Galaxy, the team SKT had beaten in the 2016 final, swept it 3-0. Samsung's ADC Ruler was MVP, and 60 million unique viewers saw the dynasty end.
The legacy, and why it matters
In 2019, SK Telecom formed a joint venture with US sports company Comcast Spectacor, and the team dropped "SK Telecom" from its name to become T1. SK Telecom now owns 54%, Comcast Spectacor 34% and Highland Capital 12%; Faker became a part-owner in 2020.
T1 has won six World Championships in total, more than any other team, along with ten LCK titles and the two MSIs from 2016 and 2017. The dynasty years made Faker a global star and Korea the place every League player wanted to test themselves against.
Every great team since has been compared with SKT's 2013-2017 run, including the T1 side that won three in a row in 2023-2025. The first dynasty did more than win: it showed that League could fill arenas, draw tens of millions of viewers and build a professional sport around a single team's brilliance. For the man at the centre of both dynasties, read our Faker career profile.