League of Legends
League of Legends
Pobelter rejoins Team Liquid for 2020 LCS as assistant coach
William Davis
Eugene “Pobelter” Park, who recently revealed that he couldn’t find a team for LCS play, has joined Team Liquid as a positional coach for 2020. In November, Pobelter shocked the League of Legends community with an emotional statement on Twitter. The former pro player shared that he couldn’t find a team to join and that for the first time since Season 4, he wouldn’t be playing in the LCS. Many …
League of Legends
New LoL game CONV/RGENCE revealed at The Game Awards
Steven Rondina
The Game Awards was very kind to League of Legends fans. Alongside winning two awards, two different spin-off titles were revealed during the event. In addition to Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, CONV/RGENCE: A League of Legends Story was also unveiled with a short teaser trailer. No gameplay was shown at The Game Awards, but one of the developers on hand gave fans an idea of what’s in …
League of Legends
Ruined King: A League of Legends Story revealed at Game Awards
Steven Rondina
A new League of Legends spin-off title has been revealed at The Game Awards. Ruined King: A League of Legends Story was revealed with a teaser trailer with former Marvel Comics artist Joe Madureira on hand to discuss it. He opened up that the title is a story-driven, turn-based RPG based in the League of Legends universe set after the Burning Tides event. Players will play as League champions and …
News
Every new roster change going into the 2020 LCS Spring Split
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Since developer Riot Games opened the doors for free agency announcements on November 18, the League of Legends community has been bombarded with rumors and official announcements of new roster changes and free agencies. Some of the LoL Championship Series teams don’t have their full rosters officially locked yet, but the situation for the 2020 season is becoming clearer with every passing day. Here’s an overview of all the current …
League of Legends
LoL fans want to remove TFT from future All-Star events
William Davis
Teamfight Tactics was the least popular part of the All-Star Event and fans are asking Riot Games to avoid including this game mode in future events. The All-Star Event took place from December 5 to December 7. Through three days, professional players, online personalities, and content creators gathered at the Esports Arena Las Vegas to compete in a series of events. Teamfight Tactics, the newest game mode in League of …
League of Legends
Soulbound class comes to Teamfight Tactics with patch 9.24
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Teamfight Tactics has been updated with patch 9.24, the final patch of the year. The patch added a new Soulbound class together with Senna, Lucian, and Amumu. Improvements to the interface and some balance changes were implemented as well. Riot Games announced that the new class featuring Senna and Lucian will be joining the second TFT set a few weeks ago. The two new units, alongside Amumu, are now available …
League of Legends
Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai invests $10 million in G2 Esports
Olivia Richman
Brooklyn Nets owner and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder Joe Tsai has just invested in G2 Esports. Tsai invested $10 million into the esports franchise, valuing G2 at $100 million. The organization is hoping to expand its presence in Asia thanks to this investment. According to the South China Morning Post, there are more gamers in China than there are people in the United States, making it a lucrative market …
League of Legends
Schalke 04 completes 2020 LEC roster with Gilius signing
Nina Forneloza
Schalke 04 has finally completed its roster going into League of Legends’ 2020 LEC season by signing Erberk “Gilius” Demir for the team’s jungler position. Fans will not have seen Gilius since the 2018 Spring Split, where he competed on the starting roster for Team Vitality. Vitality ended that season in fourth place and Gilius was replaced by Mateusz “Kikis” Szkudlarek. He has also represented G2, Giants, and Unicorns of …
Patch 9.24 live in League of Legends with Braum, Diana changes
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
League of Legends is ready for patch 9.24, the final update of the year. The patch will implement a number of champion balance changes, updates to runes, visual updates, and more. Riot has taken time since the start of preseason to collect player feedback and identify features that felt out of place. Patch 9.24 is bringing new Dawnbringer, Nightbringer and Sugar Rush skins, the Legend of the Poro King game …
Louis Vuitton launches League of Legends collection, sells out
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
World famous fashion brand Louis Vuitton launched a clothing collection in collaboration with League of Legends. The merchandise sold out in Europe within an hour after its launch. The collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Riot Games isn’t anything new. The new collection is rather another product of the partnership. The two organizations started working together for the 2019 World Championship, where Louis Vuitton designed a case for the Summoner’s Cup …
League of Legends All-Star 2019 sees viewership drop
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
According to Esports Charts data, League of Legends 2019 All-Star event experienced lower viewership than in any of the past three years, and the community isn’t too happy with how the event went this year. All-Star 2019 lagged behind its predecessors in almost every aspect. There were fewer hours streamed from the event, the total hours watch experienced a large drop, and peak viewership was down. The community pointed out …
Bwipo defeats Uzi for the All-Star 2019 1v1 championship title
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Fnatic’s top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau won the League of Legends All-Star 2019 one-on-one tournament after defeating Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao in the finals. All-Stars is an event full of entertainment and friendly competitions. Its one-on-one tournament is one of the most amusing All-Star competitions for League fans, as their favorite players get put to a different sort of test. While some pro players shine with teamwork and synergy, this tournament …
League of Legends servers face issues in some regions for Clash
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The much anticipated return of Clash was met with a few major bugs. Clash was relaunched as an open beta in all regions, allowing players to compete in the tournament mode once again. But glaring issues seem to be plauging Clash just like the mode’s previous launches. One Reddit user said that Clash in the Oceania server, located in Australia, was loading on the old map, which doesn’t have alcoves …
KT Rolster reunites Kuro, TusiN, and Aiming, completes 2020 LCK roster
William Davis
League of Legends
KT Rolster has reinvented itself, completing its new roster for the LCK 2020 season. The massive shakeup comes after the organization narrowly avoided relegation after both splits in 2019. KT is taking a new approach in 2020, running a seven-men roster in the upcoming season. Jeon “Ray” Ji-won and Kim “SoHwan” Jun-yeong are the top laners for KT in 2020. Ray is playing in the LCK for the first time …
Griffin adds Untara and Naehyun, rest of roster uncertain
William Davis
League of Legends
After months of controversy and internal struggles, Griffin announced its first round of signings ahead of the 2020 LCK Spring Split. Griffin is making good on its promise to rebuild, announcing two new players for its starting roster. Those players are former T1 top laner Park “Untara” Ui-jin and former DragonX mid laner Yoo “Naehyun” Nae-hyun. Untara joins the team after one split in Turkey playing with 1907 Fenerbahçe Esports. The …
LEC and LCK win All-Star 2019 regional rivalry showmatches
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
The first two days of League of Legends’ All-Star Las Vegas 2019 event have finished. The three-day event features a number of festivities including a one-on-one tournament, a Teamfight Tactics charity event, and several other showcases. The highlight to this point has been a pair of regional rivalry showmatches. Fans had a chance to enjoy two proper five-on-five games that pitted the LCS against the LEC, and the LCK against the LPL. …
Evil Geniuses discuss roster, NA competition, roasts LCS teams
William Davis
News
Evil Geniuses answered all of the burning questions from fans in a Reddit AMA. The team talked about the decision making behind the roster, its goals for 2020, and offered some insight into the business side of esports. CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson, CGO Phil Aram, LCS director Greg Kim, general manager Andy Barton, and team operations Sabrina Wong took part in it. The first step on Evil Geniuses’ plan was …
Riot donated $10,000 to Rick Fox’s charity stream for the Bahamas
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Rick Fox held a 24-hour long charity stream for the Bahamas Relief Foundation. Riot Games’ Social Impact Fund donated $10,000 to the stream, which ultimately raised over $60,000 in total. The former NBA star and previous owner of Echo Fox spent his childhood days in the Bahamas, and islands that suffered tremendous damage after being caught in the Hurricane Dorian this September. To help people get back to their feet …
Riot Forge to bring even more new League of Legends games
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games has announced Riot Forge, a publishing label that will develop new games in the League of Legends universe. Riot Forge will see the studio partner up with independent developers to create new games in a variety of genres. Back in October, Riot revealed its plans to launch several games, including League of Legends: Wild Rift, Teamfight Tactics Mobile, Legends of Runeterra, a League of Legends fighting game, and …
TSM could contend in LCS 2020, but will they return to Worlds?
William Davis
League of Legends
Through the offseason, Team SoloMid’s fans were promised a new roster that would satisfy their demands. The people working behind the scenes shared their genuine enthusiasm for the TSM project in 2020. Announcements were made, videos are up, and TSM has a solid roster for the LCS. On paper, TSM has the potential to get back to the top of the ladder, but first, they must overcome some big challenges. The …
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.
