League of Legends
League of Legends
These are the five worst team jerseys in pro League of Legends
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Professional esports teams show off their branding with jerseys worn by pro players and fans alike. Jerseys aren’t there just for comfort on a stage, as organizations also use them to promote their colors and sponsors, hoping to sell more merch along the way. Ahead of every season, most teams prepare new jerseys. Sometimes entirely new, sometimes just a little bit different. But not every such change is successful, and …
League of Legends
Riots scrubs bugs from new League of Legends official website
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends’ new website is live and it features a cleaner design, new champion concept art, and a bunch of bugs. Once the new official LoL page is opened, the first thing to see is a video background with Riot showcasing many of its popular animations, including Jinx’s song, K/DA, cinematics, and more. The looped video is covered with the League logo, and a “play for free” button, since …
League of Legends
LPL players forced by Tencent to play on Chinese LoL server
William Davis
Week 1 in the LPL has concluded and Tencent took the opportunity to announce some key changes in the LPL rulebook. The LPL, unlike the other major regions, is operated by Tencent. The Chinese conglomerate is at least a partial owner of some of the most popular game developers in the world, including Riot Games, Epic Games, Supercell, and Ubisoft. Legend of Legends is one of the most popular video …
League of Legends
Former 100 Thieves head coach pr0lly makes surprise LCS return
Olivia Richman
Former 100 Thieves head coach Neil “pr0lly” Hammad is joining the LCS Spring Split on the analysts desk. “After a long off-season I’m ready to announce that I’m joining the LCS analyst desk for Spring. So follow me on Saturday for the inaugural broadcast and let’s boogie!” pr0lly tweeted. The response to pr0lly’s news was overwhelmingly positive. Shoutcaster Clayton Raines welcomed him to the talent squad with a “hell yeah,” saying it …
League of Legends
Legends of Runeterra patch brings big card changes, ranked mode
Olivia Richman
With Legends of Runeterra’s open beta launching tomorrow, Riot has released the full open beta patch notes. Riot’s new card game will have a lot of updates since last year’s preview patches, including changes to some of the cards, new features, and even new boards and guardians. Since last year’s preview patch, Riot has reset all account progression for the last time. Anyone who plays in the open beta will …
League of Legends
A quick Darius guide featuring runes, builds, and some hot tips
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Darius is one of the safest top laners in League of Legends, and as such is one of the most favored picks for the role. What makes Darius particularly good is his potential to solo carry a game while not being that difficult to master. That being said, the juggernaut needs to be properly built and have a fitting rune page in order to truly shine. Players should focus on …
League of Legends
Chinese League fans are getting a new way to watch LCS and LEC
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Riot Games has partnered with Chinese streaming platform HUYA for LCS and LEC broadcasts. With China having the largest League of Legends player base in comparison to other regions, the interest in the European and North American official leagues is growing as well. Riot announced an extension to the partnership with HUYA, one of the most popular live streaming platforms in China, which will now include exclusive rights to broadcast …
League of Legends
Annie and Nautilus VFX updated, abilities finally match hit boxes
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Riot Games is continuing with visual effect updates in League of Legends. This time around, it’s Annie and Nautilus’ turn. Players have been enjoying League for 10 years as the game kept being updated with new features, champions, skins, and more. But as time passes by and more new models release, older ones can feel quite underwhelming standing next to them. This is why Riot often looks into updating the …
TFT Patch 10.2 makes Assassin units relevant again, nerfs Sivir
William Davis
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics has been updated once again with Patch 10.2. Patch 10.2 brings significant changes that will completely modify the meta. Now more than ever, the game is at a point where multiple strategies are viable. Players no longer have to fight for the same units, but instead can experiment with builds and try to out-smart each other with creative setups. Patch 10.2 reduces the duration of games by lowering …
LEC changes playoff format and championship points in 2020
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot Games announced a revised playoffs format for the LEC’s 2020 season earlier this week. League of Legends fans will see a lot of big changes in the LEC this year, including how teams will qualify for the World Championship. This season there will be even more importance placed on performances in the Summer Split playoffs. European fans will also say goodbye to Regional Qualifiers, also known as the gauntlet. …
LoL patch 10.2 nerfs Aphelios and Qiyana, changes Rift Herald
William Davis
League of Legends
League of Legends Patch 10.2 has arrived, and it brings some necessary nerfs to Aphelios and Nautilus. The second update of season ten is not large, but it targets some key champions that have been too powerful for too long. Aphelios, Nautilus, and Qiyana got nerfed on Patch 10.2. Like almost every other champion in League of Legends history, Aphelios was overpowered on release. Aphelios could dominate the lane and …
Riot Games balks at DFEH $400 million gender discrimination suit
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot Games has called the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s $400 million lawsuit estimate “a click-bait number with no grounding in reality.” The League of Legends developers agreed to pay $10 million to female employees past and present to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit in December 2019. While the community at large had applauded Riot for giving female employees from the past five years a portion of the …
Cloud9 Academy spotlights its 2020 roster ahead of debut
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9 Academy introduced its new roster ahead of the NA Academy 2020 Spring Season. Riot Games is giving the Academy players more time in the spotlight this year. The changes in the format include Academy games on the main LCS days and adds Monday League Night, a broadcast that mixes Academy and LCS games. Teams want to capitalize on this opportunity and are investing into strong rosters that can be …
Riot announces Bud Light as a new official LCS partner
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
League of Legends is about to get lit. Bud Light will be available at the LCS Arena for the Spring and Summer Split finals thanks to a new partnership between Riot Games and Bud Light. “Sipping a Bud Light and cheering on your team is a time-honored tradition of sports, and the LCS is proud to join that tradition and introduce brand new ways for fans to enjoy Bud Light …
LCS releases new documentary too early, removes it from YouTube
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
On December 20, the LCS published a short documentary titled “Eyes on LCS: New Teams Return” on its YouTube channel. But the video seems to have come out too early, as it was pulled down within an hour of its release. The documentary included features on three teams that are rejoining the League of Legends scene in the 2020 LCS Spring Split. These include Evil Geniuses, Immortals, and Dignitas. All three …
Changes to Summoner’s Rift improved blue and red side balance
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
In the recent developer blog, Riot Games shared the latest on the long ongoing issue with the blue side in League of Legends having an advantage over the opposite side. Riot claims that this imbalance has now been fixed, specifically in ranked games. A few features made the blue side stronger in the past, mostly caused by the positioning of jungle camps, intended pathing, and big objectives. Before Summoner’s Rift …
TSM announces 2020 LCS jersey with new stars, fans not impressed
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Team SoloMid shared the design of its new jersey for the 2020 LCS Spring Split, and fans are already making fun of it. It’s standard for big League of Legends teams to have new jerseys each season. Besides carrying player and sponsor names, jerseys represent the brand with their iconic colors and need to be fashionable enough to make fans want to buy them. Given that the colors of TSM are …
Huni and Aphromoo share why they joined Dignitas for the 2020 LCS
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Esports journalist Travis Gafford sat down with Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black and Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon to talk about their decision to join Dignitas’ starting roster for the 2020 LCS Spring Split. When roster shuffles started in the 2020 offseason, DIG was often talked about. After the rumor the organization paid Huni to stay on the roster for two years over $2 million, many were assuming there wasn’t enough money left for …
Australian color caster EGym joins the LCK English broadcast
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games Korea has announced Bryce “EGym” Paule as the new LCK caster for 2020. Formerly an OPL caster, EGym is joining the LCK English cast in 2020. EGym joins as the replacement for Christopher “PapaSmithy” Smith, who stepped down and joined LCS team 100 Thieves as its League of Legends general manager. EGym, who had a brief career as a professional player in Australia, joins the LCK English broadcast after …
Team Liquid encourages fans to donate blood with special merch
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
In partnership with Blood Centers of America, Team Liquid is calling on its fanbase to donate blood. Liquid shared the invitation on its official website and across social media channels earlier this summer, promoting the importance of donating blood with the “Heal for Real” campaign. Now, with Liquid’s teams starting their runs in the 2020 season, the organization is sending fans a reminder and calling for action. With esports fandom …
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.
