T1 and Faker Accept Elon Musk’s Challenge to Face AI Grok in League of Legends
- Sagar Mankar
- 3 minutes ago
- 2 min read
T1, along with their legendary mid-laner Faker, have agreed to take on Elon Musk’s daring challenge to battle his AI system, Grok, in a League of Legends match in 2026.
In a post on X on November 25, Musk revealed that Grok 5 is built to play "any game" by reading instructions and experimenting. To keep things fair, he set strict limits: Grok would only see the game through a camera feed with normal 20/20 vision, and its reaction time and clicking speed would be capped at human levels. In other words, the AI would be “nerfed” so it couldn’t rely on superhuman mechanics.
T1 wasted no time responding. Their official reply to Musk’s post included a GIF of Faker with the caption, “We are ready. Are you?”
Riot Games also showed interest, with co-founder Marc Merrill commenting, “let’s discuss,” hinting that the company might promote the match if it happens.
As the post spread across social media, former pros and streamers joined the conversation. Ex-LoL pro Eugene “Pobelter” Park said he was fascinated by the concept, drawing parallels to the famous OpenAI vs Dota 2 from 2019. Meanwhile, Oriol Vinyals, a researcher who once reached Grandmaster in StarCraft, suggested Grok should also try Blizzard’s RTS — and even joked about awarding bonus points if robots physically controlled the keyboard and mouse. Musk replied with a simple, “Sounds good.”
Of course, not everyone is fully convinced Grok stands a chance. Former pro Voyboy pointed out that League’s complexity — from micro-mechanics to macro decision-making and team coordination — makes it incredibly difficult for an AI to outperform even an LCS-level team, let alone a world champion squad like T1. Doublelift took things even further, boldly promising to shave his head if Grok ever manages to beat him.
It’s still early days, and nothing has been officially scheduled, but the prospect of T1 vs Grok has the potential to be one of the most-watched League of Legends matches ever. Whether Grok can hold its own or not, this showdown could mark a historic moment in both esports and AI development.