The amount of people saying no is mind boggling lol. 2017 was 6 years ago if you really don’t think Faker is a better player even if he’s worse RELATIVE to the competition then idk. The way that teams play the game only evolves towards optimization if you put any team/player against a 2017 team they would get annihilated lol.

Just because he’s not as ahead relatively doesn’t mean he’s not objectively better I think that’s the part that people aren’t understanding. No way you think one of the current best players in the world has gotten WORSE lol.

His prime started in 2013.

If he was T1 would have won every single trophy this year.

JDG probably doesnt even rank in the list of the top 5 strongest teams Faker has played against in his career.

I have watched Faker since his debut. It’s a hard question to answer because the game has changed massively since then, the standard of competition has increased greatly, the level of analysis and research and coaching has improved tenfold, etc etc.

I also think it’s easy to forget that Faker’s prime in past eras wasn’t as perfect as many think it was (especially those basing it on e.g. the RNG series in 2017). Peak Faker was susceptible to spells of bad form where he would play far too aggressive and cocky and get baited into enemy gameplans trying to focus/punish him, etc, and was sometimes dropped till he could regroup and be more focused. Usually the poor spells of form were in LCK and come international touranaments Faker would have gotten his act together and would peak, more so Worlds than MSI where he’s usually been a bit flaky.

It’s beyond debate that Faker has hit another peak this Worlds, but is he as good as when he hit previous peaks? I think the answer is probably that he’s actually better. His mechanics have been absolutely on point this Worlds (other than maybe game 1 vs Pyosik), and he’s doing it vs stronger opponents than what he faced in 2015-2017. Against BLG, LNG and JDG he’s put in immaculate performances with lots of outplays and super smart decisions, the micro and macro have been as good as it gets for a mid laner at this level, if he wins Worlds with a good series I think this is his best Worlds performance ever. I would say he is in a second or third prime.

One thing to consider is that in league specifically as the players are learning and optimizing how to play the game they are raising the baseline level of play. You see this in solo queue with the average gold lee sin being able to insec when it wasn’t conceivable 10 years ago.

I say this to say that Faker now is most definitely a better player than he ever was simply because he’s still at the top and the level of play is way higher than it was in 2017. He’s doing so many things that we can’t physically see for his team which was evident by their dramatic drop in ranking when he left.

Mate what is the point of this post its literally subjective.