League of Legends
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, …
League of Legends
Two LoL apps were just bought for $55 million
Nicholas James
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 …
League of Legends
Two new Elderwood skins are coming to League of Legends
Olivia Richman
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
League of Legends to remove promotion series in Split 2
William Davis
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 …
League of Legends
Reports say LCS Faker was almost a reality
Nicholas James
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 …
League of Legends
Doublelift frustrated with Riot, discusses walkout situation
Olivia Richman
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 …
League of Legends
TFT patch 13.11 adds a preview of Runeterra Reforged
William Davis
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 …
League of Legends
LCS Summer Split delayed as Riot shuts down LCSPA requests
Olivia Richman
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 …
The new NACL teams, from Disguised to EG
Nicholas James
League of Legends
After Riot Games made NACL participation optional for LCS organizations, fans have many new NACL teams to get acquainted with, here’s a full list. Riot Games recently announced that LCS organizations would not have the mandatory duty to field a roster in the tier-two North American scene. As a result, all but three LCS teams have abandoned their Challengers efforts for the time being. This means lots of new teams …
JD Gaming Kanavi won MSI while first-timing this champion
Nicholas James
League of Legends
JD Gaming jungler Seo “Kanavi” Jin-hyeok has recently won his first international League of Legends title, taking down MSI 2023 while playing a champion for the very first time. JDG took MSI 2023 in London, England by storm. Triumphing against fellow LPL representative Billibilli Gaming in the finals, and jungler Kanavi played no small part in that victory. After the series, when the recordings of JDG’s communications onstage, it was …
Faker and JDG members will represent Korea in 2022 Asian Games
William Davis
League of Legends
The Korean Esports Association, KeSPA, revealed Team Korea’s roster for the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games. The roster includes two members of the 2023 MSI Champion, JD Gaming and Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. Esports were first included in the 2018 Asian Games as demonstration sports. In 2023, esports are officially included in the Asian Games as an official event. This marks the first time that esports is part of an event hosted …
What would an LCS player’s strike look like?
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games recently made participation in the North American Challenger League options for LCS organizations, and that looks like it could lead to an LCS players strike. The North American Challenger League is the second tier of play in North America. Until recently, it was mandatory for LCS organizations to field a NACL roster. Recently, Riot Games put it to a vote among the LCS ownership, and that requirement was …
LCS Player Association is holding a vote to go on strike
William Davis
League of Legends
The LCS Player Association, LCSPA, is hosting a vote on a proposal to stage a walkout, which would mean the LCS would go on strike. It comes as a response to Riot Games’ decision-making regarding the amateur scene. According to a report by Mikhail Klimentov, the vote will be taking place on Sunday, May 28, at 8:30 pm PT. On May 12, Riot Games made public its decision to no …
Disguised Toast scouting top NA League of Legends players
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
YouTuber Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang has had a challenging time in the Valorant scene, but his esports dreams are not gone just yet. Now, Disguised Toast is possibly looking to get into League of Legends. Earlier this year, Disguised Toast signed a Valorant Game Changers roster full of popular female streamers. The squad got a lot of views but didn’t make it very far at all in the qualifiers. They …
JDG knight: “I expected that they would leave the Jayce open” at MSI
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
China’s JD Gaming spoke to the media following their 3-1 triumph over Bilibili Gaming in the 2023 MSI final. Mid laner Zhuo “knight” Ding was the star of the show, piloting Jayce in all of JDG’s wins despite there being little priority on the champion throughout the tournament beforehand. Knight pointed to being “very familiar with the champion” as a reason for the sudden priority, as he has been “playing …
All the biggest Midseason patch changes to items
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The Midseason patch changes have been out for a few days and League of Legends players are saying these are the biggest changes to hit Summoner’s Rift. Riot Games likes to shake up League of Legends halfway through each season, and that time has come for Season 13. This year, Riot Games is taking a close look at the items system and trying to reinvent several items while also modifying …
BLG Tabe: “It’s a regret” to underestimate Jayce at MSI
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
After a fairy tale run to the grand final of MSI 2023, Bilibili Gaming found the title a step too far as they fell in a 3-1 series loss at the hands of LPL rivals JD Gaming. The team spoke to the media following the loss. Top laner Chen “Bin” Ze-Bin has been a fan favorite at the tournament, and his performances for BLG at MSI have furthered claims that …
Riot talks LCS problems, Olympic weirdness at MSI
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
Prior to JD Gaming’s MSI 2023 grand final victory over Biliblili Gaming, Riot’s president of esports John Needham, global head of League of Legends esports Naz Aletaha, and League of Legends EMEA esports director Max Schmidt sat down with media for a roundtable Q&A session. First on the agenda was the presence of League of Legends, and esports as a whole, in Olympic and other international athletic events. Needham revealed …
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.
