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League of Legends Worlds is a big deal for me. Year after year I tune into every match from start to finish, watching as new titans rise, old ones fall, and EMEA inevitably stumbles at the final hurdle. I crave the high highs and the low lows; the peaks and the troughs. But most of the time, I’m just excited to watch T1. They are, after all, the premier esports team.
Over the past few years, however, I’ve found myself feeling a little fatigued by Worlds; not by the tournament itself per say, but by the lack of real hype. Ever since Phoenix (and Take Over at a push), I haven’t really gelled with the League of Legends Worlds anthems, or Riot’s approach to their music videos. Star Walkin’, while a great song, isn’t a LoL track; Gods was fine; Heavy is the Crown was fine; Sacrifice was actively weak. It feels like Worlds anthems have slowly grown less interesting, meaning the hype, as a result, simply hasn’t been there.
True Damage had a relatively easy job this year: I don’t think anyone’s arguing that Sacrifice is a hard act to follow. Know My Name, while perhaps a little generic, is a pretty good track – it stomps Heartsteel’s latest, and certainly feels more anthemic than G.E.M’s anthem did. My issue with it is that this doesn’t really feel like True Damage’s ‘big comeback’ moment. Why? Well, the video’s about Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok. And also T1. But mainly Faker.
Faker is a staple in League of Legends esports videos – it makes sense, he’s the best LoL player ever. He’s in Rise, Phoenix, Take Over; the list goes on and on. In Heavy is the Crown, he’s effectively the main character, with somewhat odd features from Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and Emily Armstrong. In Know My Name, he may as well be the only character – True Damage themselves are, by and large, nowhere to be found. Instead, Know My Name serves as Faker’s greatest hits; an animated tour of his storied history.
That’s not to say that Faker doesn’t deserve this level of praise – he’s won ten LCK trophies, two MSIs, and six Worlds, three of which have been back to back, with this year being a potential fourth. But there are other League of Legends players. This year saw EMEA’s Rasmus ‘Caps’ Winter inducted into the Hall of Legends. There’s the likes of Kang ‘TheShy’ Seung-lok, Park ‘Ruler’ Jae-hyuk – players that have etched themselves into LoL esports history. Where are they? Cameos at best, excluded at worst.
What makes this even more confusing is that Worlds, this year, takes place across New York, Texas, and Los Angeles. Next year, it’s in Korea. Know My Name’s video doesn’t seem like it’s set in the US – there’s no Empire State Building, iconic NY skyline, or the lights at Santa Monica pier. There are no immediate references to any LCS players – you could argue ‘that’s because they suck, haha.’ But, this year, Worlds is in the US. The Korea focus feels odd, then; a celebration of Faker, T1, and their achievements would have made complete sense for 2027, but this year it just feels off.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that, between the Faker glory cuts and T1 celebrations, there’s little to no True Damage. They appear on billboards throughout and that’s it. Akali, Ekko, Qiyana, Senna, and Yasuo are backing singers when, in my mind, this was their big comeback. Heartsteel got their own, dedicated video; why haven’t True Damage?
Giants; POP/STARS; Mortal Reminder – all of these videos, while perhaps ‘cringe’ by modern standards, celebrated League of Legends champions and the music that they were supposedly creating. They had heart and spirit; they felt League of Legends. While Worlds Anthem videos have always focused more on the players, Phoenix, Star Walkin’ and Rise are all clever in their inclusion of League of Legends’ lore and world. Relegating True Damage to being dancing figures on billboards kind of feels like it misses the point of bringing them back in the first place. This isn’t a comeback: it’s a glorified cameo.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m still hyped for Worlds. I’ll watch the games, scream ‘T1 fighting,’ and be amazed when Faker does Unkillable Demon King things. Know My Name isn’t a bad song; it’s still hype, and I genuinely love seeing True Damage again. It just feels like the wrong combination for the wrong Worlds.
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