What LoL does so well is build profiles for their players. The fanbase knows the personality of the top players, the orgs (and even Riot) support it by showing personal storylines and doing content which really resonates with people.
As for Val I think it's quite rare unless you're at the very top (and even then there's some players you don't know much about)
Think of Chronicle for example, he's the most accomplished player so far, yet people know pretty much nothing about him or his personality.
It's regional too, outside of Turkey not many people know much about cNed, or Aspas outside of Brazil. Sure you know who they are as a player, but not as a person, which is super important in creating a 'faker status' imo.
If you look at it from a results standpoint I think winning multiple Champs is much, much harder in Val, maybe it will get easier as the game gets older but right now the meta is changing too fast