All LoL Worlds Winners Over the Years

Have you seen Google's latest ads in Korea? That's Faker and aespa's Karina. Nvidia's Jensen Huang made Faker his first stop in Seoul. TIME put him next to LeBron and Messi on its 100 most influential people in sports. And the South Korean president pinned the Cheongnyong Medal on him, the country's highest athletic honor, a first for esports.

That's what six Worlds titles and a three-peat buy, sealed when T1 beat KT Rolster 3-2 in Chengdu at Worlds 2025, a crazy run that Chinese fans memed about: "T1 off to a bad start -> T1 misplaying everything -> T1 in full collapse -> T1's defeat is sealed -> T1 giving the victory speech."

But even T1 had fallen on this stage, beaten by champions whose stories were just as wild. That's the pull of LoL esports, and why Worlds finals are the most-watched esports events in human history. Fnatic's scrappy DreamHack run in 2011. Samsung White's near-perfect 2014. Invictus Gaming cracking China's drought in 2018. DRX's Play-In miracle in 2022.

We’ll go through every LoL world champion in order, how they got there, and why each title still excites players.

Before the detailed breakdowns, here is a quick reference of every Worlds winner, runner-up, score, venue, and Finals MVP in one table.

The first League of Legends World Championship did not even have its own venue. Riot slotted it into DreamHack Summer 2011 in Jönköping, Sweden, with eight teams and a $100,000 prize pool that nobody outside the bubble noticed. Fnatic, the best European squad of the early competitive era, beat Against All Authority 2-1 in the grand final to become the first LoL world champion in history. That trophy counts every bit as much as the ones that came later, because it set the precedent for every Worlds final since.

Season two started to look like the event we know now. Riot pushed the prize pool to $2 million, the biggest in esports history at the time, and moved the grand final to the Galen Center in Los Angeles. Taipei Assassins went in as quiet favorites from the then-Garena region and delivered, beating Korean side Azubu Frost 3-1 to lift the first proper Summoner's Cup. It was the only time a Taiwanese team had ever won a League of Legends world championship, and it remains a point of pride for Garena viewers until now.

Faker's first Worlds run ended with a 3-0 sweep of China's Royal Club at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and it announced Lee 'Faker' Sang-hyeok to a global audience that did not yet know what to do with him. SK Telecom T1's 2013 roster of Impact, Bengi, Faker, Piglet, and PoohManDu ran through the tournament, with 32 million viewers watching the final and a peak concurrent audience of 8.5 million.

Samsung White might be the single best team ever assembled in League of Legends esports. Looper, DanDy, PawN, imp, and Mata went into the 2014 world championship with almost no holes in their lineup and left Seoul World Cup Stadium with a 3-1 win over Star Horn Royal Club in front of 40,000 fans. If SSW had not disbanded after Riot's ownership rule changes, they might have won a second.

After a year away from the Summoner's Cup, Faker came back angry. SKT's 2015 squad of MaRin, Bengi, Faker, Bang, and Wolf dominated the entire tournament, dropped only one series all of Worlds, and beat KOO Tigers 3-1 at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.

Worlds 2016 was the closest the sport has ever come to a roster giving up its grip. Samsung Galaxy, rebuilt from the ashes of Samsung White and Samsung Blue, pushed SKT to five games in the grand final at the Staples Center, tied the series 2-2, and forced the first ever game five at a League of Legends World Championship final. Faker cried during game four. Duke, Bengi, Blank, Faker, Bang, and Wolf still won 3-2 with a $2,028,000 first place check out of a $5 million prize pool. Faker took Finals MVP for the second time, the tournament drew 43 million viewers, and SKT became the first team to win the world championship back-to-back.

Twelve months of training later, Samsung Galaxy dragged SKT into a rematch at the Beijing National Stadium, the Bird's Nest. This time, CuVee, Ambition, Haru, Crown, Ruler, and CoreJJ swept Faker's squad 3-0 in front of roughly 60 million viewers, and ADC Park 'Ruler' Jae-hyuk turned his Xayah games into Finals MVP moments that nobody who watched the broadcast ever forgot. It was also the last time an ADC took Finals MVP until Gumayusi eight years later.

For six years, LPL teams went to Worlds as contenders and left without a trophy. That ended in Incheon, South Korea in 2018, with Invictus Gaming hanging a 3-0 sweep on European finalists Fnatic in one of the most lopsided finals the event has ever produced. TheShy, Ning, Rookie, JackeyLove, and Baolan were the starting roster.

One year after IG broke the drought, FunPlus Phoenix went back-to-back for China with a 3-0 sweep of G2 Esports at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris. GimGoon, Tian, Doinb, Lwx, and Crisp ran through the bracket on a roster built around Doinb's roaming mid-lane playstyle, and it was more than enough to beat one of the best Western teams ever at Worlds. League of Legends esports surpassed 100 million viewers for the first time, driven by this final.

During COVID, Shanghai's Pudong Football Stadium allowed just 6,312 socially distanced fans in the stands for the final. Nuguri, Canyon, ShowMaker, Ghost, and BeryL beat Suning 3-1 with Canyon winning Finals MVP for a Kindred and Graves run that made every top jungler in the world reconsider what tempo was supposed to look like.

If watching ShowMaker make the game look this simple convinces you that the gap between you and a mid laner that good is mostly about information and decision-making, you are right. The shortcut is a VOD review with one of the best League of Legends coaches who can point out the three macro mistakes you are probably still making every game and then fix them in real time.

Worlds 2021 was held entirely at Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík because COVID travel restrictions made China impossible, and the tournament ended in one of the tightest grand finals in modern Worlds history. Edward Gaming, the LPL's longest-standing organization, beat defending champions DWG KIA 3-2 in a best-of-five where every game flipped multiple times. Flandre, Jiejie, Scout, Viper, and Meiko were the roster.

DRX was the first team to win the title as a Play-In stage team. After squeaking into the LCK's fourth seed, and they had to win a best-of-five just to qualify for the actual group stage. Then they beat EDG. They beat Gen.G. They beat T1 in the grand final at the Chase Center in San Francisco 3-2 in one of the cleanest upsets in League of Legends world championship history. Kingen, Pyosik, Zeka, Deft, and BeryL were the lineup. Kingen took Finals MVP for an all-timer Aatrox series, and Deft, one of the longest-serving ADCs in competitive LoL, finally got his Worlds ring after nearly a decade of coming close. BeryL picked up his second Summoner's Cup two years after his first with DAMWON.

Faker had lost three Worlds finals in seven years before 2023. He also spent most of that window being told his best days were behind him. Then T1 walked into the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul with Zeus, Oner, Faker, Gumayusi, and Keria and swept Weibo Gaming 3-0 to give him his fourth world championship. He became the first player ever to win four Summoner's Cups. The trophy was the hottest take in the sport. 'Faker is done' was officially dead.

T1 did not look invincible entering Worlds 2024, but they looked exactly as good as they needed to. The grand final at the O2 Arena in London was a 3-2 series against Bilibili Gaming that T1 had to work for, with Zeus, Oner, Faker, Gumayusi, and Keria closing it out. Faker picked up his fifth world championship and another Finals MVP. Going back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 set up the only thing bigger than a repeat: a three-peat.

Worlds 2025 was the biggest League of Legends event Riot has ever staged, held across Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu from October 14 to November 9. T1 entered with four of its five 2024 starters and a new top laner, Doran. Then, T1 beat KT Rolster 3-2 in front of 18,000 fans at Dong'an Lake Sports Park Multifunctional Gymnasium, becoming the first team to win three consecutive world championships in League of Legends history. Faker took his sixth title, Lee 'Gumayusi' Min-hyeong won Finals MVP, and T1 walked away with $1,000,000 out of a $5 million prize pool.

Fifteen world championships produce a lot of trivia. Here is the shortlist of records that still define the competitive scene in 2026.

Most team titles. T1 and their SK Telecom T1 predecessor own six Summoner's Cups, which is double any other organization in League of Legends history.

Most player titles. Faker is the only six-time Worlds champion. He has been on every T1 championship roster since 2013, except the off-years.

Most coach titles. Kim 'kkOma' Jeong-gyun has five, giving him the strongest claim to the greatest coaching career in League of Legends esports.

First Worlds three-peat. T1's 2023 to 2025 run is the first time any roster has won three consecutive Worlds, full stop.

Regional totals. The LCK has ten Worlds trophies. The LPL has three.

Biggest underdog run. DRX winning from the Play-In stage in 2022 is the only time a team that started Worlds in the Play-In has gone on to win it. They beat the best teams like EDG, Gen.G, and T1 on the way to the trophy, and the entire run is one of the best storylines in esports.

Three-peats are supposed to break a roster. T1 has not shown any sign of breaking yet, even though their performance wasn’t the greatest during the 2026 LCK Regional, FST, and MSI. But this resilient team still has months to adjust and adapt before November.

The real question is which team is going to stop it. Hanwha Life, Gen.G, and KT Rolster all have the infrastructure in the LCK. The LPL has quietly rebuilt rosters like BLG (2026 FST winner), WE, and JDG. G2 from the LEC delivered impressive performances at the 2026 FST and MSI.

If you are watching all this and wondering how the best players in the world make their decisions look so second-nature, the shortest path is to learn from someone who already thinks that way. Booking an hour with a verified Challenger League of Legends coach gets you a replay analysis or a live session with an improvement plan that can fix the habits that are stopping you from climbing. You do not have to make it to Worlds to train like someone who does.