League of Legends
League of Legends
G2 Esports overcomes Rogue in tough game in LEC Spring Split
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
G2 Esports faced Rogue in the third week of the 2020 LEC Spring Split. Rogue was looking for an upset against the dominant team, but G2’s undefeated streak continued on. All eyes were on the mid lane matchup during the draft phase. Luka “Perkz” Perković picked Sett to fight against Emil “Larssen” Larsson’s LeBlanc. Top lane went for a matchup highly focused on health regeneration, with G2 picking Soraka and …
League of Legends
Machine to serve as host for LEC 2020 Spring Split weeks 3 and 4
Steven Rondina
A fresh but familiar face is set to appear at the desk of the 2020 LEC Spring Split. The LEC announced that esports caster and host Alex “Machine” Richardson will serve as a guest analyst for weeks three and four of the season. The two sides briefly bantered about the news on Twitter, This will be Machine’s second time casting League of Legends. Machine appeared in the LEC as a host …
League of Legends
G2 picks up Ibai, LVP casters for new Spanish content house
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
G2 Esports has announced its new Spanish content team, including some of the most popular Spanish League of Legends personalities. The Spanish Creator House is joined by three LVP shout casters Ander “andeR” Cortés, Ibai “Ibai” Llanos, and Ernesto “BarbeQ” Folch, as well as content creator Antonio “Reven” Pine. With G2 founded in Spain and the owner Carlos “ocelote” Santiago being Spanish, it’s no wonder the organization is looking to …
League of Legends
Riot announces the official launch date for Clash game mode
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Riot Games shared exciting news for League of Legends players. The official launch of Clash is happening this month! Clash is officially launching on all Riot’s servers on February 28, though some of the Garena servers in Southeast Asia and China won’t get the experience of the in-game tournament just yet. The developer doesn’t have exact dates on the upcoming Garena launch. For it to be a special event that …
League of Legends
LoL patch 10.3 improves jungling and hits Akali with a big nerf
William Davis
League of Legends Patch 10.3 has arrived! Patch 10.3 is currently live and it targets some of the most problematic champions in the game. On the visual side of the game, Patch 10.3 adds three new skins. True Damage Senna Prestige Edition, Heartseeker Jinx and Heartseeker Yuumi. The new skins will be available on the store on February 6. Akali is currently the most banned champion in professional play, as …
League of Legends
T1 overcomes Damwon Gaming to kick off 2020 LCK Spring Split
William Davis
T1 opened the 2020 LCK Spring season with a victory over Damwon Gaming. The LCK is back and it started with a bang as T1 met Damwon in the first series of the split. T1 arrived at the LoL Park with a new look, new roster, and new coaching staff. On the other side, Damwon kept the same roster and added new coaches. Interestingly, both coaches were actually working against …
League of Legends
After 2 weeks, LCS Monday Night League is a viewership flop
Olivia Richman
The League of Legends Championship Series’ Monday Night League concept appears to be a flop. The LCS introduced a new schedule for the 2020 LCS Spring Split, with each week of the LCS now taking place across Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Adding that extra day was meant to attract new audiences, but it seems to be having the opposite effect. Despite featuring some pretty big matches, including Team Liquid vs. Team …
League of Legends
Once blamed for TSM’s failures, C9 Zven now stands atop LCS
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Cloud9’s Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen is currently standing as the best bot laner in the 2020 LCS Spring Split in terms of stats. After being considered Team SoloMid’s weakest link during the previous season, Zven is popping off under Cloud9’s banner. Two weeks into the 2020 LCS Spring Split, he has a perfect KDA, he’s a top farmer amongst the bot laners, and has the highest gold per minute. To be …
Team Liquid updates fans on Broxah’s visa issues as team wallows
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Co-CEO of Team Liquid Steve “LiQuiD112” Arhancet shared new details about Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen’s visa process. During the Hotline League, a Twitch podcast hosted by Travis Gafford and Mark Zimmerman, Arhancet said he has big news to share regarding the organization’s League of Legends team. As he couldn’t join the voice chat himself, he dropped the news about Broxah’s visa in the Twitch chat, letting fans know where things stand …
TSM styles on CLG, adds another victory in 2020 LCS Spring Split
William Davis
League of Legends
Team SoloMid closed week two of the 2020 LCS Spring Split with a convincing victory over Counter Logic Gaming. TSM and CLG have one of the most iconic rivalries in League of Legends. Over the years, the two teams have consistently found themselves face-to-face on Summoner’s Rift. At this point in 2020, the rivals are at a low point and looking to rebound back at the expense of the other. …
G2 Caps shares why his team is happy with their role swap in LEC
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Ramus “Caps” Winther shared with his fans more details about the G2 Esports role switch between him and Luka “Perkz” Perković. G2 may have not started the 2020 LEC Spring Split performing as good as fans expected, but is still with no doubt the best team in the region. Even though some fans weren’t confident in Perkz and Caps switching their roles, mostly since Caps had never competed in a …
LCS MVP CoreJJ just extended his contract with Team Liquid
William Davis
League of Legends
Team Liquid’s support Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in has extended his contract with the team through 2022. Team Liquid has locked down its star support for two more years. The organization extended CoreJJ’s contract early, an interesting choice considering the team’s tendency to make big roster changes every year. CoreJJ, that first joined the team ahead of the 2019 season, is the only player whose contract was extended this early. The decision …
Powerful Jhin ability bugged out of the game, says IKeepItTaco
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games may have accidentally nerfed Jhin after introducing a fix to a bug on the champion’s E, Captive Audience. Once the fix went live, a very powerful mechanic that has remained active since Jhin’s release was unexpectedly disabled. The ability involves the champion’s Q, Dancing Grenade, and cleverly executing minions in order to maximize the damage output. Dancing Grenade’s damage per bounce increases by 35% per kill upwards to …
Jankos unwisely brags about ducking fine for forgetting equipment
Olivia Richman
News
G2 Esports’ Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski bragged about escaping a fine from the LEC on Twitter. For Jankos, his team’s victory over Origen yesterday wasn’t his only success of the weekend. Jankos also avoided a fine after making the small mistake of forgetting his mousepad for the game. “Well, yesterday I forgot my stage mousepad and instead of admitting it and getting fined by my team, I didn’t tell anyone and …
Legendary ADC Bang is the latest to complain about NA solo queue
William Davis
League of Legends
Evil Geniuses’ bottom laner Bae “Bang” Jun-sik is not happy with the current state of North America’s solo queue environment. According to Bang, NA solo queue is simple “not valuable”, the player wrote on his Twitter. He added that he is going to keep playing anyway. In a second tweet, responding to a fan, Bang said that high elo players in North America play like Platinum players in South Korea. …
Jankos interrupts LEC interview to warn Riot on Sejuani buffs
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
G2 Esports’ League of Legends player Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski sent a message to Riot Games to not go through with buffs to Sejuani. The jungler has just helped G2 advance to a 4-0 winning streak in the 2020 LEC Spring Split after a dominant win against Origen. After a game with Lee Sin, Jankos sat down for a post-game interview. While Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere was asking him questions related to …
Riot selling LoL Valentine’s Day merch featuring Rakan and Xayah
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Valentine’s Day is approaching quickly and Riot Games has something special for couples that play League of Legends. The publisher is rolling out a special 2020 Valentine’s Collection that fans can give to that special someone, or keep for themselves if they just happen to be a collector. Fittingly, most of the items in the collection are based on League of Legends’ top power couple, Xayah and Rakan. Four new items were …
G2 Esports vs. Origen breaks viewership record for LEC splits
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
News
The second weekend of the 2020 LEC Spring Split produced one of the most-watched matches in European League of Legends history. G2 Esports’ dominant performance over Origen attracted a record number of viewers to their screens. After failing to reach last year’s numbers on debut day, the LEC enjoyed a significant uptick in viewership in week two. This is especially true for last weekend’s match between OG and G2, as fans tuned …
Major Soraka nerf coming to League of Legends in near future
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Pros and casual players alike have seen the rise of Soraka in League of Legends over the past few weeks. Riot senior champion designer August Browning announced that Soraka will be seeing a pretty big nerf in an upcoming patch when his followers asked about the popular champion on Twitch. “It’s just overpowered. That’s what I think about it,” he explained. “It’s not like it’s not cool. But Soraka top …
Everything you need to master top lane Soraka in League
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Every so often, champions designed for completely different roles show up strong in the meta as an unconventional pick. Such is the case with Soraka, a support that recently spiked in popularity on the top lane, even in pro play. With healing abilities and high poke, Soraka’s solo lane potential is high. Though squishy, she excels in sustain. Her range and crowd control make for easy poke and her global …
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.
