Erotic novel accused of basing protagonist on LoL icon Faker gets taken down

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A popular online novel from South Korea has been taken off the Ridibooks platform after readers claimed its main character was based on professional League of Legends player Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok.

The new novel, ‘A Mad Dog Catches the Tiger,’ released on October 24th and quickly faced criticism. Many fans claimed a main character, nicknamed “Tiger,” was too similar to the career of famous esports player Faker. The author stated there was no intention to base the character on Faker, but Korean esports fans disagreed, believing the similarities were too strong to be coincidental.

Tiger is an exceptionally talented player who started his career at a remarkably young age. He’s won five championships, captained the powerful Critique team, and cultivated a stern, commanding image. However, beneath that exterior lies a more naive and less socially adept individual.

Web novel pulled for allegedly basing character on Faker

Fans quickly noted that Faker began his professional career at just 17 years old, and he’s unique in having won the World Championship five times. He’s also famous for being both a calm, strong leader and surprisingly endearing.

As a fan, I’ve noticed something really cool! People are pointing out that the nickname they gave Tiger in the story sounds a lot like Faker’s famous title, “Unkillable Demon King.” It’s a neat little nod to a legendary player, and it’s awesome to see that kind of respect shown!

Honestly, what really got people talking wasn’t just the drama, but how closely the story followed Faker’s actual League of Legends career. It was like someone had taken his life and turned it into a plotline, except they removed any adult content. It was just… eerily accurate!

The story depicts a player winning championships back-to-back, then failing to achieve a third consecutive win. After a ten-year gap, they return to finally claim that third title. This mirrors Faker’s career: he won world championships in 2015 and 2016, didn’t win in 2017, and then made an incredible comeback, winning championships in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

The story mirrors real life, showing the team falling apart when their star player is injured. This happened to T1 in 2023 – they struggled while Faker recovered from a wrist injury, but then dramatically improved and won the world championship after he came back.

When comparisons started appearing on X and Korean online forums, the author strongly reaffirmed that the novel was purely a work of fiction and not based on any real people or events. However, this actually intensified the controversy.

Facing increasing criticism, the author issued a complete apology, admitting the overlaps were too close to be considered coincidental. While she maintained she didn’t intentionally copy from Faker, she acknowledged her editing process hadn’t been thorough enough and pledged to fix the issues.

So, Ridibooks took the book down! They’ve put up a message saying it’s temporarily unavailable because the publisher or whoever owns the rights asked them to. It’s a bummer, but that’s what happened.

Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok keeps building his incredible story beyond the game. He recently led T1 to another World Championship win in 2025, cementing his status as the greatest of all time and even getting noticed by Elon Musk. Musk, who owns Tesla and X, publicly challenged T1 to a competition – a head-to-head match between T1 and his Grok AI, similar to the famous chess match between Kasparov and Deep Blue.

Tier 1 has agreed, and Marc Merrill, a co-founder of Riot Games, has offered to support the event, which could become one of the largest showcase matches in esports history.

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2025-11-28 21:50