League of Legends
League of Legends
Bjergsen remains with Team SoloMid, returns to LCS stage in 2020
Nina Forneloza
Team SoloMid, one of the most popular and successful esports brands in the world, has announced the resigning of Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg as mid laner for their League of Legends team. Bjergsen will remain the team’s mid laner through the end of 2021, and he will become the first player in the LCS to have an ownership stake in his team. There was some debate as to whether Bjergsen would …
League of Legends
G2 Esports destroys Cloud9, stays undefeated at LoL Worlds 2019
William Davis
G2 Esports slaughtered Cloud9 to secure first place in Group A at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. Fans were expecting an exciting showdown between the North American and European teams and they did not disappoint, despite a fairly predictable outcome. Both teams came into the stage with guns blazing ready to take down the opponent. Before the match, C9 decided to start Robert “Blaber” Huang in the …
League of Legends
Xmithie baron steal sparks Team Liquid comeback at LoL Worlds 2019
William Davis
Jake “Xmithie” Puchero saved Team Liquid from an upset loss at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship with a crafty baron steal against ahq e-Sports Club. Xmithie is well-known for stealing the objectives from the enemies and walking away. The jungler added another big play to his highlight reel by saving his team from defeat and keeping Liquid in the hunt for first place in its group. Before Xmithie’s play, Team …
League of Legends
Nuclear shuts up haters, gets big win for Damwon at LoL Worlds 2019
William Davis
Sin “Nuclear” Jeong-hyeon is looking to shut his doubters up. The Damwon Gaming bottom laner outperformed Invictus Gaming in their matchup at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. Nuclear has been considered Damwon’s weak link for the longest time. The bottom laner can struggle in lane and has made some questionable decisions in key team fights. That hasn’t changed at Worlds, as Nuclear looked shaky in his first two …
League of Legends
Faker backdoors SKT to victory over RNG at LoL Worlds 2019
William Davis
Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok guided SK Telecom T1 to victory against Royal Never Give Up with a surprising backdoor play. The team remains undefeated at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. The LCK champion is dominating the competition in its return to the international stage. SKT is making a case for themselves as the favorites to win the tournament. In the group stage, the team continues to dominate the competition with an …
League of Legends
Riot clarifies stance on political statements ahead of Worlds 2019
Nina Forneloza
John Needham, the global head of League of Legends esports, has released an announcement about political statements made during League of Legends broadcasts. The biggest League of Legends tournament of the year has just gotten underway. The 2019 League of Legends World Championship kicked off with two former world champions facing off as Fnatic fell to SK Telecom T1. Needham’s statement addressed the start of Worlds, saying he wanted to …
League of Legends
The most common 2019 LoL Worlds Pick’Em predictions revealed
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
With the LoL Worlds 2019 Main Event underway, the group stage Pick’em predictions are now locked. Reddit user u/LoLNamesGG shared some interesting statistics regarding this, revealing the most common setups players have for each of the four groups. Over 420,000 Pick’em predictions were analyzed, which showed that fans are favoring G2 Esports, FunPlus Phoenix, SK Telecom T1, and Invictus Gaming to come out on top of their respective groups. Group A has a strong favorite in G2, …
League of Legends
J Team gets huge upset win over FunPlus Phoenix in LoL Worlds 2019
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Surprises were expected in the 2019 League of Legends Worlds Championship but even so, this is a bit of a shock. The LMS’s J Team took a win against Group B favorites and LPL first seed FunPlus Phoenix, and in dominant fashion. JT began pressuring FPX’s lanes early in the game, but FPX knew how to respond. They drew first blood and rotated to take the first Dragon. The early game continued with …
Doublelift gets first quadra kill at Worlds 2019, Liquid beats Damwon
William Davis
League of Legends
Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng got the first quadra kill of the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. Doublelift and Team Liquid won their first match at Worlds in style, at the expense of Damwon Gaming. Group D is probably the most competitive group at Worlds, as all four teams have a realistic chance of advancing to the next stage. That showed earlier in the day as ahq e-Sports Club proved that they can …
Riot tries to explain hesitance to name Hong Kong Attitude at Worlds
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is attempting to distance themselves from controversy as the company explains their reasoning for seemingly censoring casters from using the phrase “Hong Kong.” Worlds 2019 casters seem to be avoiding referring to the pro team Hong Kong Attitude by their full title and instead are using their abbreviation HKA. Some in the LoL community believe this is because Riot Games is owned by Tencent. Tencent is a Chinese …
Faker debuts at LoL Worlds 2019 with perfect KDA, SKT beats Fnatic
William Davis
League of Legends
The unkillable demon king is back! Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok debuted at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship with a perfect KDA. SK Telecom T1 started its World Championship run with a dominant victory over Fnatic. During the broadcast, the analysts predicted that Fnatic would take the game considering how little time SKT had to prepare in the European server. They didn’t anticipate the power of the three-time world champion …
LoL Worlds 2019 main event groups schedule, highlight matches
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2019 League of Legends World Championship is hours away. The biggest League of Legends competition of the year is set to start on October 12 with the main event group stage. Fnatic and SK Telecom T1 will be responsible for kicking off the tournament, followed by a clash Royal Never Give Up and Clutch Gaming. The group stage is a double round-robin that will run from October 12 through October …
Are Asian teams dominating practice ahead of LoL Worlds main event?
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2019 League of Legends World Championship main event is right around the corner and the teams are getting ready to represent their regions. Asian teams in particular are shining ahead of the event. According to G2 Esports’ jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski, the Asian teams are stronger than they anticipated. Team Liquid’s bottom laner Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng echoed his sentiment, saying that those teams are in another level. The play-in stage …
Patch 9.20 brings new High Noon skins for Ashe, Darius, Hecarim
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
League of Legends has gotten updated with the patch 9.20 that presented players with new High Noon skins for Ashe, Darius, and Hecarim, along with a number of champion balance updates. The introduction of new High Noon skins has further enrichened the lore of League’s alternate universe. From October 10, League players are able to purchase three new High Noon skins with Ashe, Darius, and Hecarim joining the cowboy theme. …
Riot Games could be teasing new champion Senna on PBE
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
An update to League of Legends Public Beta Environment (PBE) added a visual feature to the map that players believe to be a teaser for Senna, Lucian’s wife previously trapped in Thresh’s lantern. It’s been almost four months since Riot Games released Qiyana, the lastest champion introduced to League. Players are expecting a new champion soon, and Riot might just be teasing one here. YouTube user “Eldimarix” shared video footage …
Top 5 teams at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship
William Davis
News
The 2019 League of Legends World Championship brings together the best teams in the world for the biggest event of the year. 24 teams fought their way to the event, but only one will become the 2019 World champion. Every team at the event has its own strengths and weaknesses. This is the first Worlds for many of the competitors, and they will be looking to make every game count. …
TFT patch 9.20 nerfs Assassin-Wild combo, buffs Gunslingers
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
League of Legends patch 9.20 has introduced a few important updates to Teamfight Tactics. Riot Games is continuing to make changes to TFT with balance tweaks and stabilization improvements. The patch slightly lowered the crit chance of Assassins’ three-unit bonus trait to 5% and Wild’s attack speed per stack to 10%. These nerfs come as an answer to the Assasin-Wild compositions that have lately dominating the meta. A slight buff …
LoL World Championship 2019 single “Phoenix” finally released
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
With almost 500,000 views in just a few hours, it’s safe to say that fans have been excited for the launch of the 2019 League of Legends World Championship’s single and music video. “Phoenix,” performed by Cailin Russo and Crissy Costanza, is all about facing your own worst enemy: Yourself. It’s an interesting take on Worlds, when most songs in the past were about fighting other opponents in a struggle for …
LoL Worlds 2019 group stage Pick’em predictions
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2019 League of Legends World Championship main event is right around the corner. With the play-in stage now complete, the 16 teams that will compete under League’s brightest spotlight have been decided. The groups have been seeded and fans can get a feeling for what sort of odds their favorites are facing. As with past years, Riot Games is encouraging fans to keep up with the action with the …
Splyce beats Unicorns of Love, heads to LoL Worlds main event
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
The final series of the League of Legends 2019 World Championship play-ins was contested by the LCL’s Unicorns of Love and the LEC’s Splyce. The European favorites came out on top of the series with a 3-2 score, but the Unicorns didn’t go down without a fight. The first game of the series seemed to be well in hand for Splyce. First blood with a gank under Unicorns’ top lane tower …
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
Huni and Clutch come up short against SKT at LoL Worlds 2019
By
William Davis
League of Legends
Fnatic struggles against Royal Never Give Up again at Worlds 2019
By
William Davis
League of Legends
Lucian’s Homebound story hints towards Senna as new LoL champion
By
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
