League of Legends
League of Legends
Riot is testing different League of Legends shops in LoL client
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Some League of Legends players have had their clients updated with a new shop layout. A few League players shared that their in-game shops have a new interface, with some now having it for over a month. This caused confusion within the community, and players started to wonder what is unique to those that got the shop update others are missing. However, the more likely scenario is that Riot Games …
League of Legends
Closer: Golden Guardians has proved it’s not a “10th-place team”
Olivia Richman
The Golden Guardians may have lost their first match of the Spring Split yesterday, but that didn’t stop Can “Closer” Çelik from enjoying his debut on the LCS Arena stage. The Turkish player shined in his jungler role, giving the team’s fans hope that there are better things to come for the underdog team. Closer sat down with WIN.gg to talk about his goals for the 2020 season, his favorite Turkish …
League of Legends
Dignitas obliterates Counter Logic Gaming in 2020 LCS Spring debut
William Davis
Dignitas made its debut in the 2020 LCS Spring Split with a convincing victory over Counter Logic Gaming. The organization commemorated its official return to League of Legends in impressive fashion. After rebuilding its roster in the off-season, it was tough to predict how Dignitas would look in action. The team consists of veterans that are in very different stages of their careers and play different styles. That made Dignitas …
League of Legends
Huni on big Dignitas contract: “I proved myself, I’m worth it”
Olivia Richman
The new Dignitas lineup entered their first 2020 LCS Spring Split match as underdogs, but had little trouble against Counter Logic Gaming. Despite their concerning off-season, the veteran squad proved they still have a lot to offer and Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon is here to bring it out of them. The former Clutch Gaming top laner told WIN.gg all about that fateful off-season and how he plans to lead his new teammates to victory this …
League of Legends
LCS Spring Finals head to Frisco in surprise announcement
Olivia Richman
The LCS Spring Finals are heading to Frisco, Texas this year. “For the first time, after much demand from players and fans, the LCS Spring Finals are strapping on cowboy boots and heading south to Texas!” read the official press release. The location was revealed for the first time during the pre-show broadcast on Saturday, January 25. The big show will be coming to the Ford Center at The Star …
League of Legends
G2 Esports looks shaky in 2020 LEC debut against MAD Lions
William Davis
G2 Esports opened the 2020 LEC Spring season with a victory over MAD Lions. The 2019 World Championship finalist was in charge of welcoming the new organization to the league. MAD built an interesting roster in the off-season that includes mid laner Marek “Humanoid” Brázda and various talent from the regional circuit. G2 kept the same roster from 2019, but with a twist. Luka “Perkz” Perković is back in the …
League of Legends
Brazilian League teams want franchising, CBLoL to implement
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Riot Games has decided to franchise CBLoL, the highest level of professional League of Legends in Brazil. On January 21, Riot Brazil announced the 2020 Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends is bringing new talents, new sponsors, and most importantly the beginning of its implementation of a franchise model. Since the LCS and LEC have moved to the model two seasons ago, more and more tournaments are noticing the benefits …
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 …
Riots scrubs bugs from new League of Legends official website
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
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 …
LPL players forced by Tencent to play on Chinese LoL server
William Davis
League of Legends
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 …
Former 100 Thieves head coach pr0lly makes surprise LCS return
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
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 …
LEC broadcast separates from Riot Games with new Twitch channel
William Davis
League of Legends
Starting this spring, the LEC will have its own Twitch channel, and the announcement came just before the start of the 2020 LEC Spring season. It’s a new year and the LEC is getting its own Twitch channel. This channel will be the home of the LEC broadcast and any future content specific for the region. In 2019, the EU LCS adopted the franchised model and rebranded to LEC. The …
LEC announces new locations for the 2020 LEC Roadshow
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
News
The LEC announced where this year’s roadshows are heading to. The 2020 LEC Spring Finals are going to Budapest, Hungary, with the Summer Split wrapping up in Malmö, Sweden. The League of Legends European Championship started to collaborate with major cities in Europe for the split finals when it rebranded last year. For the 2019 season, Riot Games picked Rotterdam, Netherlands for the 2019 LEC Spring Final, with the Summer …
Chovy hints at a surprising role swap coming to DragonX
William Davis
League of Legends
DragonX mid laner Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon recently hinted the possibility of a surprising role swap in the spring. DragonX, previously known as Kingzone DragonX, is taking a page out of G2 Esports’ book and is experimenting with a role swap. In a recent interview with Korean website Daily Esports, Chovy revealed that the team could go for the swap in the first game of the 2020 LCK Spring season. “For …
Legends of Runeterra patch brings big card changes, ranked mode
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
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 …
A quick Darius guide featuring runes, builds, and some hot tips
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
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 …
Chinese League fans are getting a new way to watch LCS and LEC
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
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 …
Annie and Nautilus VFX updated, abilities finally match hit boxes
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
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. …
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.
League of Legends
Dignitas runs over Evil Geniuses in day 2 of 2020 LCS Spring
By
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Rating the 2020 LCS Spring Split jerseys from worst to best
By
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
2020 LEC Spring debut fails to match last year’s viewership
By
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
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