Back in Season 3, the top of every ranked ladder looked the same. Rows of usernames made from uppercase “I” and lowercase “l,” stacked together until they looked like a supermarket barcode. IlIIIlllII. llllIIIlll. Impossible to read, impossible to type into a search bar, impossible to look up.
That was the point. Pros and high Elo players used barcode names to stay anonymous. If nobody could work out who you were, nobody could scout your champion pool, check your match history, stream snipe you, or queue into your games on purpose.
Then Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok showed up on the North American server as BarcodeKiller.
It was one of the cleanest flexes in League history. While everyone else hid, Faker put a name in the lobby that told you exactly what was about to happen. He wasn’t avoiding the anonymous players at the top of the ladder. He was announcing that he was there to beat them.
The name only worked because of who was behind it. 2013 was Faker’s debut year with SK Telecom T1. He went from unknown rookie to the most feared mid laner on the planet in a matter of months, capped off by winning the Season 3 World Championship in Los Angeles against Royal Club. That was also the year of the Zed mirror against Ryu, still the most replayed outplay in the game’s history.
So when BarcodeKiller loaded into an NA solo queue game, the reaction wasn’t “who’s this guy being cocky.” It was “oh no.”
Faker was one of the players who made Riven mid look like a legitimate pick at the highest level, and the champion suited his image perfectly. Riven rewards animation cancels, precise ability order, dash timing, and split-second kill math. Everything that separated Faker from everyone else was visible in a single combo.
The trend came from StarCraft. In Brood War and StarCraft II, hiding your identity mattered even more, because opponents who recognized your name could prepare hard counters to the builds you were practicing. Korean SC2 pros filled the top of the ladder with barcodes, and the habit spread to other competitive games, including GunZ and online chess.
