Faker confident T1 can defeat Elon Musk’s proposed Grok AI in League of Legends match

South Korea’s esports icon Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok, midlaner for League of Legends team T1, said he was confident his team could defeat an artificial intelligence opponent proposed by Elon Musk in a potential exhibition match next year.

Speaking during a press conference reported by local media in Seoul on December 18th, Faker welcomed the growing interest from major technology companies in competitive gaming, while expressing belief that human players would still have the edge in the short term.

“It’s encouraging to see AI and big tech companies paying attention to our field,” Faker said. “Chess may have already fallen to AI, but I believe we can win the match next year.”

The comments followed a post made by Musk in November on X (formerly Twitter), where the Tesla CEO said his artificial intelligence company, xAI, was planning a 2026 match between its next-generation model, Grok 5, and T1. Musk described the Korean organisation as the best human League of Legends team after it secured this year’s League of Legends World Championship title.

T1 publicly acknowledged the proposal shortly after, posting a photo of Lee alongside the message: “We are ready.”

While details around the format, ruleset or official confirmation of the match have not yet been announced, the suggestion has sparked comparisons to historic human-versus-AI showdowns, most notably Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeating Go champion Lee Sedol and IBM’s Deep Blue winning against World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov.

Faker acknowledged the long-term potential of artificial intelligence in esports, but suggested League of Legends remains a more complex challenge.

“I think AI will eventually be able to compete against us in LoL and win someday,” he said. “But next year, I feel like we’ll probably be the ones to win.”

The press conference was also held in the context of Lee’s recent four-year contract extension with T1, which will keep him with the organisation until 2029. Having debuted with the team in 2013, Lee has spent his entire professional career with T1 and is widely regarded as the most accomplished player in League of Legends history, with six World Championship titles to his name.

“With this contract, I expect to spend my entire professional career with T1,” Faker said. “The organisation has given me many important things beyond financial rewards.”

Despite being 29 — an age at which many esports professionals have already retired — Faker said his motivation to compete remains unchanged.

“My passion still exists,” he said. “I still very much want to win and play well.”

Faker also named Gen.G midlaner Jeong ‘Chovy’ Ji-hoon as his greatest rival in recent years, describing their matchups as a key driver of his continued growth as a player.

Whether or not the proposed AI match ultimately takes place, Lee’s comments underline both the accelerating role of artificial intelligence in gaming and esports, and the continued confidence of elite players in human creativity, adaptability and teamwork — at least for now.