League of Legends
League of Legends
Riot Games drops in with League of Legends Season 2020 merch
Olivia Richman
You’re climbing the League of Legends ladder this season, sure. But are you doing it in style? To celebrate the 2020 season, Riot has dropped some League of Legends merch for fans looking to stay stylish in solo queue. All of the clothing items feature the League of Legends logo, a simple one on the front right pocket and an elaborate and ornate Summoner’s Rift design on the back. The …
League of Legends
Riot Games releases Sett, announces more new champions for 2020
William Davis
The Boss has arrived. Sett, the first new champion of 2020, is officially available in League of Legends. Sett was introduced in the PBE server in previous weeks and is now ready to hit live servers. Sett is a juggernaut from the Ionian region who rules the underground fighting pits. This self-made crime boss relies on his fists to get the job done. Sett is intended to be a top …
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming opens the 2020 LPL Spring beating FunPlus Phoenix
William Davis
Invictus Gaming opened the 2020 LPL Spring season with a decisive victory over the current World Champion FunPlus Phoenix. The 2020 LPL Spring is off to an exciting start, and the first series of the year saw Invictus Gaming facing FunPlus Phoenix. Invictus Gaming got its revenge over FunPlus after their encounter in the 2019 World Championship semifinals. Invictus Gaming jumped into the rift with a new bottom lane that …
League of Legends
The 12 regions of Runeterra and their place in League of Legends lore
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
The League of Legends universe is vast and full of lore. There are almost 150 champions and each one has their own backstory that fleshes out the world of Runeterra. Runeterra includes 12 regions, two of which are hidden from the map. From Bilgewater’s port of outlaws, to the prestigious kingdom of Demacia, to the highest peak of Targon where celestial beings reside, League draws from almost every fantasy subgenre …
League of Legends
Riot reveals info on Tellstones: King’s Gambit board game
Olivia Richman
Riot’s 10th anniversary live stream revealed some cryptic details regarding Riot Game’s venture into virtual card games, fighting games, and an FPS, all set within League of Legend’s lore and featuring their existing champions. While this left many League of Legends fans overwhelmed, it appears that Riot has even more in store for 2020. A Twitter post over the weekend introduced yet another addition to the League of Legends universe: …
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming confirms 2020 roster, JackeyLove is out
William Davis
2018 World Champion Invictus Gaming introduced its roster for the 2020 LPL Spring and one key member is missing from the list. After months of speculations, Invictus Gaming confirmed that bottom laner Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo is no longer part of the organizations. JackeyLove, who first joined the team in 2017, was the most consistent member of Invictus Gaming through 2019. The bottom laner evolved from a shy child to one of …
League of Legends
Royal Never Give Up star Uzi wins 2019 Weibo Person of the Year award
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends pro player Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao has been voted the Weibo person of the year, with fans voting for him more than any other Chinese celebrity on the platform. Weibo is a Chinese social media platform equivalent to Twitter. It’s a go-to platform for celebrities, influencers, and brands, especially in the entertainment industry. It’s no different for esports, as most LPL players and teams turn to Weibo to …
League of Legends
Premier Tour rebrands as LoL Prime League for the 2020 season
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
German, Austrian, and Swiss League of Legends teams have a new home. For the 2020 season, the Premier Tour has been replaced by Prime League. The 2020 Prime League Pro Division Spring is a part of European Masters and will serve as a battleground for academy teams from the DACH region. The league is being organized by Riot Games and Freaks 4U Gaming, an international esports marketing company. Riot’s …
Five safe picks to win League of Legends ranked placement games
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Season 10 of League of Legends is live and players are focusing their efforts on winning their placement games so they can get a head start on this year’s ranked climb. But not everyone is succeeding. Besides understanding the macro of games and being mechanically skilled, players need to think well how a champion they’re picking is doing in the current meta if they really want to win. While some …
League of Legends Warriors music video’s lyrics, lore explained
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
“Warriors” is the new anthem for League of Legends’ 2020 season. The cinematic music video was released on January 10, with portions of the short featuring Lux and Garen defending a fortress against an army led by Sylas. Despite being outnumbered, Lux summons Galio and uses her magic to hold off the enemy, winning the trust of the Demacian forces. This is actually the possible conclusion of an ongoing League …
Legends of Runeterra open beta launch date announced by Riot Games
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
League of Legends’ new card game, Legends of Runeterra, is moving into open beta on January 24. According to a press release from Riot Games, the open beta will introduce ranked mode, starting with a “beta season.” If January 24 is still too far away for some fans, Riot is offering early access to Legends of Runeterra to players who create an account prior to Janauary 20th. This includes players who …
League of Legends Season 10 changes, plans detailed by Riot
gabhernandez
League of Legends
In a recent Dev Video, Riot goes over some of its changes to, and plans for, Summoner’s Rift in Season 10. Preseason 10 started with the Rise of The Elements patch. It introduced a comprehensive rework of how the dragon objectives impact the pace of the game. Riot is mostly content with the state of the changes, but are keeping an eye on the power the objectives can provide. This …
2020 LCK Spring Split start date, full list of teams revealed
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2020 LCK Spring Split will start on February 5, approximately two weeks later than in previous years. The schedule is based on the Lunar New Year celebration, which occurs on January 25 in 2020. Following the holidays, the teams will have a little while to regroup before the beginning of the season. Like previous years, the LCK is following a double round-robin format through the regular season. The regular …
Showmatch between MAD Lions and Team Tyler1 is called off
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
The showmatch between LEC team MAD Lions and Team Tyler1 from Twitch Rivals won’t be happening. And even if it were to somehow come through, there will be no broadcast of the game. Just two days ago, MAD Lions challenged League of Legends streamer and Team Tyler1 member Christian “IWDominate” Rivera on a match in response to him teasing the team’s Twitter follower count. IWDominate answered that he’d gladly play …
LoL Warriors cinematic continues on lore of the Lux comic series
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games kicked off the 2020 ranked season with an epic cinematic short. For the first time ever, Riot chose to use their annual animation to continue one of the major League of Legends lore threads. Demacia and mage rebellions have been a recurring focus of media surrounding the game. That arc began with the release of the champion Sylas, whose backstory revolves around sparking a mage revolution against the …
FunPlus Phoenix decide on 2019 Worlds champion skins
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
The 2019 World Champion FunPlus Phoenix have made a definitive decision on champions that will be wearing the team’s colors with new skins. FPX mid laner Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang shared during a live stream which five FPX skins League of Legends players will be able to buy in the stores this spring. World Champion skins are coming for Gangplank, Lee Sin, Malphite, Vayne, and Thresh. FPX is the seventh champion to …
Riot Games Korea CEO Park Jun-kyu passes away
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games Korea CEO Park Jun-kyu passed away on January 9 after battling with liver cancer for almost a year. Riot Games Korea announced that its CEO passed away on January 9. Park Jun-kyu had been battling with liver cancer for the greater part of 2019 while working for Riot Games through one of the busiest years for the developer. Park Jun-kyu joined Riot Games in 2014 from CJ E&M, …
LCS tickets for sale, fans unhappy with Spring Pass pricing
William Davis
League of Legends
The tickets for the 2020 LCS Spring season are up for sale now. After releasing the full schedule for the 2020 LCS Spring, Riot Games is officially selling the tickets for next season. The LCS was by some metrics the third most popular major professional sports league in the United States in 2019 and is expecting to attract even more fans in 2020. Tickets are available online, and the price range …
KT Rolster restricts trainee applications to players younger than 20
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Korean League of Legends team KT Rolster has opened applications for new trainees and they are looking for young talent. Exclusively looking for young talent, mind you. KT put out a call for trainees between the ages of 16 and 20. That hard ceiling at just 20 years of age stunned and angered the community on multiple fronts. Many pro players are trying to break the stigma of older age bringing …
Aphelios breaks record in Korea as the most-banned LoL champion
William Davis
League of Legends
Aphelios has broken the record as the most-banned champion in Korean solo queue, with a 223% ban rate. Aphelios, The Weapon of the Faithful, was introduced with Patch 9.24, the final update of 2019. The champion promised to be different from any other champion prior and it lived up to those expectations. While Aphelios’ kit is different from the rest in the game, it was also too powerful. Because of …
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
Sneaky officially leaves Cloud9 LoL roster for 2020 LCS Spring Split
By
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
Faker’s stream interrupted by bugs in League of Legends client
By
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games launches Mecha Kingdoms event, shares more 2020 plans
By
William Davis
