League of Legends
League of Legends
LoL Preseason 2020 brings changes to dragons, jungling, and more
William Davis
Riot Games celebrated League of Legends’ 10th anniversary with a special edition of Riot Pls. League of Legends has become one of the most popular games in the world with millions of players logging in on a weekly basis. The game has a worldwide competitive scene supported by fans that are willing to travel anywhere to cheer for their teams. On the 10th anniversary of League of Legends, Riot Games …
League of Legends
cvMax airs internal problems at Griffin, dispute with manager Cho
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Griffin’s former League of Legends coach Kim “cvMax” Dae-ho left the team ahead of the League of Legends 2019 World Championship. He has now explained the circumstances of his departure from the team during a stream, blaming it on internal conflicts within the organization. As a head coach, cvMax helped Griffin’s League team come from the League of Legends Champions Korea 2018 Summer Promotion tournament all the way to winning …
League of Legends
Cloud9 fumbles lead, loses to Griffin in LoL Worlds 2019
William Davis
Griffin took down Cloud9 and advanced to second place in Group A at the 2019 League of Legends World Champion. Griffin versus Cloud9 was one of the most anticipated matches in the main event group stage, with its outcome likely to determine the second seed of the star-studded Group A. Because it was such an important match, the teams made interesting decisions during the picks and bans phase. C9 drafted …
League of Legends
Leaks for League 10th Anniversary hint at mobile and card games
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
With the League of Legends 10th Anniversary celebration event soon going live, many leaks to what Riot Games will announce during the event are coming through, including a mobile game, a card game, and an anime series. According to leaks shared by reporter Rob “Slasher” Breslau, Riot is about to announce a number of diverse features they have been developing behind the scenes. One of those leaks is the development …
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 …
Riot hints at preseason changes leading up to LoL Season 10
gabhernandez
League of Legends
With the ninth season of League of Legends coming to a close, developer Riot Games is teasing the upcoming gameplay changes for the preseason period prior to Season 10. Included is a focus on creating more environmental variety and an increase in detailed gameplay interactions with and around the map. Riot explained that League of Legends’ greatest strengths are variety and mastery. Variety being the expansive selection of champions and …
G2 Esports starts LoL Worlds 2019 run by crushing Griffin
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports looked exceptional in its 2019 League of Legends World Championship debut. The 2019 Mid-Season Invitational champion struck again by completely dominating Griffin to kick things off for Group A. On paper, the match between the up-and-coming talent from the LCK and the experienced European juggernaut should have been a close one. In reality, G2 smashed Griffin in a game that was one-sided. In the early game, Lee “Tarzan” …
Rookie slays Team Liquid at LoL Worlds 2019, IG starts 2-0
William Davis
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming got its revenge on Team Liquid at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship thanks to an outstanding performance by Song “Rookie” Eui-jin. Invictus Gaming and Team Liquid previously met at the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational. At the time, Team Liquid knocked IG out of the competition in the semifinals. That loss kicked off a rocky summer season for Invictus Gaming, but the reigning World Champion seems to be back …
Faker backdoors SKT to victory over RNG at LoL Worlds 2019
William Davis
League of Legends
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 …
Riot clarifies stance on political statements ahead of Worlds 2019
Nina Forneloza
League of Legends
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 …
The most common 2019 LoL Worlds Pick’Em predictions revealed
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
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, …
J Team gets huge upset win over FunPlus Phoenix in LoL Worlds 2019
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
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 …
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
