League of Legends
League of Legends
How to play the new jungler Naafiri in League of Legends
Nicholas James
Naafiri is the new Darkin jungler coming to League of Legends, and we’ve got your guide for how to best use her. Naafiri will be making her way onto PBE this week, but luckily we already have tons of information about what the new Darkin will need to succeed. She’s an Assassin, a burst-focused melee character who focuses on dealing enormous bursts of damage to exposed and vulnerable enemies. Her …
League of Legends
Naafiri abilities revealed ahead of PBE release
William Davis
We are getting closer to Naafiri’s release date as the new League of Legends champion. The Naafiri abilities rundown is now available ahead of the PBE release. Naafiri is the 164th champion in League of Legends, a Darkin assassin that has possessed a pack of Shuriman hounds. In League of Legends, Naafiri is meant to be an assassin, used as a jungler. Passive – We Are More Naafiri spawns Packmates …
League of Legends
All of the TFT Legends and their Augments
Nicholas James
The new Teamfight Tactics set has brought a brand new mechanic to the game, Legends, here is a complete breakdown of all the TFT Legends Augments. Teamfight Tactics has been finding ways to keep the gameplay fresh and exciting for players. The new Legends system allows players to customize what Augments they are offered at different stages of the game. If you like early win streaking with strong units, there’s …
League of Legends
New 2v2v2v2 LoL game mode coming July 20
Nicholas James
The new 2v2v2v2 LoL game mode has gotten a trailer, and it revealed that it’s coming to League of Legends very soon with its very own skin line. League of Legends is a game with very few game modes. There’s Summoner’s Rift, All Random All Mid, and anything you can put together in a custom lobby. Previous game modes like Dominion, Nexus Blitz, and rotating seasonal content like Poro King, …
League of Legends
New LoL champion Naafiri revealed in animated cinematic
Nicholas James
The new LoL champion Naafiri has been revealed in an animated cinematic that depicts the origin of the latest champion. Naafiri is the new Darkin assassin jungler, and Riot Games has created an entire animated trailer to catch fans up on her lore. Naafiri is a Darkin, an ancient Shuriman god-warrior tainted by blood magic and the Void. She was trapped in a weapon by the Targonians before being found …
League of Legends
Odoamne talks LEC loss, roster swaps, language barriers
Tokoni Uti
Following Excel Esports’ LEC Summer opening defeat to KOI, WIN.gg spoke to top laner Andrei “Odoamne” Pascu to get his thoughts on the start, improvements during the off-season, and preventing another collapse. WIN.gg: What are your immediate thoughts on the loss to KOI? Odoamne: We showed some good stuff to kind of come back into that game, I believe. Obviously, we fell very, very far behind the early game, and …
League of Legends
The best team compositions in TFT: Runeterra Reforged
Nicholas James
The new Teamfight Tactics set is here, so we’re breaking down some of the very best team compositions in Runeterra Reforged to help you climb. Runeterra Reforged is taking Teamfight Tactics back to the base setting of League of Legends, letting fans explore Runeterra by creating teams of champions grouped by their home region. It also includes the brand new Legends system and Region Portal system, letting players mold their …
League of Legends
FENNEL Shakespeare becomes first LJL woman pro
Nicholas James
The professional League of Legends scene has had a new piece of history cemented, with support player FENNEL Shakespeare being the first woman to play in the LJL. The LJL is the official Riot-supported Japanese circuit for League of Legends. This week, one player for the Japanese team FENNEL made history. Miyu “Shakespeare” Otomo served as the substitute support for FENNEL’s primary support Ian “Corporal” Pearse. After a 2-0 victory, …
Two LoL apps were just bought for $55 million
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Two League of Legends statistics apps created by the same person were just bought out for a massive $55 million, but why were these LoL apps so valuable? League of Legends is a complicated game, and there are plenty of third-party tools meant to help ease players in. With a player count well above 100 million, there is no shortage of LoL players to use these apps. So much so …
Two new Elderwood skins are coming to League of Legends
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The Elderwood skin line is getting more champions turned forest creatures later this month. The Elderwood thematic is a skin line that transforms champions into mysterious woodland monsters and mysteries, like Ahri becoming a flowery nymph, Azir becoming a feathery, armored bird, and Ornn sporting a glowing orc-like skin. A lot of these champions are not popular on the Rift but fans are happy to see them get a bit …
League of Legends to remove promotion series in Split 2
William Davis
League of Legends
League of Legends is removing the promotion series and adding a new tier to ranked. Riot Games decided to divide 2023 into two splits. In the second split of the year, all ranks will be reset, and players will climb again. The rank reset is not the only major change coming during the second half of the year. League of Legends is adding a new tier, Emerald. While it might …
LCS is resuming activities, LCSPA announces
William Davis
League of Legends
The LCS is resuming activities on June 14, the LCS Player Association announced through Twitter. It is a historical day for professional League of Legends players in North America. According to the LCSPA, they had reached an agreement with Riot Games and the LCS teams to ensure the future of the NACL. The LCSPA held a vote to stage a walkout, which received more than 90% of support from active …
Your complete guide to the Runeterra Reforged traits
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The new Teamfight Tactics set, Runeterra Reforged, takes Riot Games’ auto-battler back to Runeterra, here are all the Runeterra Reforged traits and origins. Traits and Origins are the types by which champions are divided, and we’ve assembled all the details for how the new set will change team compositions. Bastion is this set’s default defensive trait, granting all Bastion units bonus Armor and Magic Resistance. This bonus is doubled for …
Everything you need to know about Convergence
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Convergence: A League of Legends Story is a 2D action platformer made by Riot Forge, Riot Games’ publishing effort for games set in the world of Runeterra. Riot Forge is a way for Riot Games to publish other developers’ games set in the world of League of Legends without having to spend development resources of its own. The latest Riot Forge title is Convergence: A League of Legends story, a …
Reports say LCS Faker was almost a reality
Nicholas James
League of Legends
For fans of the LCS, Faker might seem impossible, but reports say that Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok almost joined a North American organization. Faker is the single most accomplished League of Legends player in the game’s entire history. He’s won 10 LCK Championships, two MSIs, and three World Championships. For his entire career, the name Faker has been synonymous with Korea’s LCK. However, according to reports, that almost changed at one …
Doublelift frustrated with Riot, discusses walkout situation
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
LCS veteran Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng recently shared his opinions on the controversial and unprecedented player walkout. Riot Games recently announced that esports organizations with franchised teams in the LCS no longer had to have an Academy level team. In response, many teams dropped their Academy teams and staff immediately, leaving a lot of promising talent without a clear path to pro — or income — anymore. In response, the LCS …
TFT patch 13.11 adds a preview of Runeterra Reforged
William Davis
League of Legends
TFT has released patch 13.11, also known as The For Fun Patch. It is the final update before the release of Set 9, Runeterra Reforged. We are less than two weeks away from the release of Set 9, Runeterra Reforged. The ninth set in TFT takes the players back to basics, with all the units being divided based on their region of origin. Some players already got their hands on …
LCS Summer Split delayed as Riot shuts down LCSPA requests
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot Games has officially delayed the LCS Summer Split by two weeks after the LCS Players’ Association led a walk out to protest the company’s decision to no longer require Academy teams. It was a monumental moment in esports history when LCS players decided to stage a walkout in solidarity with the Academy tier of competitive League of Legends. After Riot Games announced that LCS franchised teams were no longer …
LCS teams to field temporary rosters amid strike
William Davis
League of Legends
LCS teams have allegedly found temporary rosters to compete on stage. The decision comes after the LCS Player Association passed a vote to go on strike ahead of the upcoming season. North American League of Legends players have agreed to a strike. The decision comes as a protest to Riot Games’ recent decision to remove the Academy team requirement, putting at risk the future of the region. While most teams …
LCS players will walk out in protest of NACL changes
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Professional North American LoL talent will be staging a walkout in protest of the recent Riot Games ruling to make North American Challenger League participation optional for LCS organizations. Following a vote by the members of the LCS Players Association, the entirety of the league’s players will be staging a walkout and refusing to participate in the scheduled start of the 2023 Summer Split unless Riot opens a dialogue with …
League of Legends
is among the most popular widely-played video games in the world. It has been a consistent trendsetter in the gaming industry, whether as a model for other free-to-play titles looking to monetize their players or as a guiding light for how professional esports can be both successful and sustainable.
It hasn’t always been so though. League of Legends was released in 2009 as an uncertain new project, a game with large aspirations but little proven. In the years since, it has developed into the dominant title that it is today, and one of the biggest games on the planet.
League of Legends drives success of MOBA genre
League of Legends stands out in part because it may arguably be the very first original game released to truly fit into what we now understand to be the increasingly
popular MOBA genre. Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas are a very particular type of game genre that carry out competition between two opposing teams of players on a map. These games test a mix of competition, tactics, and quick reactions, a potent combination that has proven equal parts popular and durable over the years.
While League of Legends was certainly among the first full releases to focus on the genre and its new ideas, it wasn’t actually the origin point for any of it. That distinction belongs to
Blizzard release WarCraft 3,
and more specifically a modified game mode titled
Defense of the Ancients.
WarCraft 3 was a real-time strategy game that featured prominent hero units who could gain in power as they accrued experience points to level up their abilities, and gold to purchase powerful items. Defense of the Ancients was a
user-made game mode
which emphasized these heroes by giving each player control over one such character and teaming them up against an opposing squad of players. It was a dynamite success, inspiring myriad clones and, eventually, an entire genre of games.
But while League of Legends wasn’t the first to bring about these concepts, it was certainly
effective in executing on them. Early developers at publisher Riot Games had a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish with the creation of League of Legends, and it would be hard to argue against their success given the runaway popularity achieved by their iteration on the MOBA formula.
LoL incorporates esports sustainably
Just as impressive as the long-term success of League of Legends as a game is the continued success of the title’s esports scene. While esports has known multiple peaks and valleys over the years, Riot Games has consistently managed to maintain the prominence of LoL esports. This has been accomplished through an emphasis on
regular regional play
and
sustainability.
Most esports and competitive games at the time used a circuits system, scattering major tournaments for the best teams across the year. Instead, Riot divided the world into separate playing regions. Each region has its own
competitive league
in which the best professional teams play weekly. The best teams in each league are then brought together for an
annual World Championship event
at the end of the competitive year. This allowed for domestic fan followings to develop across such regions as
Korea,
China,
Europe, and
North
and
South America. Fans would closely follow the teams in their region, and from that familiarity would feel invested in cheering them on when they clashed with teams from other regions at the game’s biggest international event.
This basic blueprint has continued to prove successful for Riot Games over the years, though it has expanded and been modified with time. In response to the success of the World Championship, Riot introduced a second international tournament in 2015, the prestigious
Mid-Season Invitational. In 2025,
First Stand
was added to bring LoL esports to three international events per year. Once again the scene was enhanced and this indirectly expanded the opportunities for
League of Legends esports betting. In the meantime, the regional leagues have spread out to include
more regions and lower levels, solidifying their identity.
The basic formula remains the same, however.
Encourage fan support on a domestic level, and then carry that support and interest over to
the global stage. It’s a formula that continues to power League of Legends esports, and looks set to enable it for many years yet to come.
At Win.gg, our coverage of LoL esports spans from the broader competitive updates and their impact on the scene to in-depth high-profile match previews with team analysis, head-to-head analysis,
LoL betting odds
sense-makers and predictions. All of these based on the insights of our experienced esports journalists.
