League of Legends
League of Legends
Fnatic beats Splyce, secures second seed in LEC for Worlds
William Davis
Fnatic secured the LEC’s second seed in the 2019 League of Legends World Championship with a convincing victory over Splyce. As expected, Fnatic managed to take the series in three quick games. Despite the result, Splyce still managed to show good macro plays and an ability to stand their ground against Fnatic. European teams are looking like strong contenders for Worlds this year. All three squads have a different play style …
League of Legends
LLA is relocating to Mexico in 2020 after one season in Chile
William Davis
The LLA is moving to Mexico in 2020. After only one year, Riot Games has decided to move the main Latin American League of Legends tournament up north. The LLA was established ahead of the 2019 season when Riot Games decided to merge the Latin America North and Latin America South tournaments into one competition. The developer went through a long selection process to determine the eight teams that would …
League of Legends
TSM to build biggest esports training facility in North America
gabhernandez
In a move worth $13 million, Team SoloMid is working on a state of the art training facility dedicated to their competitive esports teams. The 25,000 square foot facility is being built in Playa Vista, a west Los Angeles neighborhood. Set to finish in February of 2020, this facility will be the largest esports training facility in North America. Even the Team Liquid Alienware training facility pales in comparison at …
League of Legends
New League of Legends lore book appears to be in the works
Jared Wynne
It’s no question that League of Legends has some of the most expansive, and at times confusing, lore in the competitive gaming sphere. This makes it that much more exciting that developer Riot Games is reportedly to be releasing a new lore book to streamline and supplement all of the amassed information about the game’s world. The LoL narrative and world building team have been working tirelessly for as long …
League of Legends
League of Legends streamer TF Blade explains why he was banned from Twitch
Olivia Richman
Team Liquid League of Legends streamer Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni had his Twitch account suspended, once again halting the streaming of his journey to become the top-ranked solo queue player in every region. According to a TwitLonger TF Blade posted earlier today, he was banned for using the words “dog” and “unintelligent” to describe the people in the region he was playing in. Although TF Blade noted that he had “no intentions …
League of Legends
Jin Air out of LCK after defeat versus Hanwha Life Esports
William Davis
Jin Air Green Wings will not return to the LCK in 2020. The organization has been officially relegated to Challengers Korea after losing to Hanwha Life Esports. The two teams met in the 2020 LCK Promotion tournament lower bracket, where Hanwha took the series with a clean 3-0. Throughout the series, Jin Air looked lost on the rift. The team heavily relied on jungler Kim “Malrang” Geun-seong to win the game …
League of Legends
Veteran ADC Freeze looks to return to top levels of pro LoL
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
With the end of the latest competitive season, MAD Lions E.C. player Aleš “Freeze” Kněžínek is exploring new opportunities in the League of Legends pro scene. Freeze has shared a TwitLong stating that he’s going to be exploring his options during the offseason. The Czech League of Legends player is a veteran of the scene, having begun competing in 2012. After playing with now-disbanded teams H2K Gaming and Tempo Storm …
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics saw sharp decline in Twitch views last month
Olivia Richman
Is Teamfight Tactics just a fad? According to StreamElements, the autobattler’s Twitch viewership dropped 57% between July and August, when it had under 30 million total hours watched. Riot Game’s auto chess title became the most-watched game on Twitch in July, with an average of 120,000 viewers each day. The last week of July, Teamfight Tactics saw a 55.2% growth in views. So it’s quite a drastic change just one …
John Cena cheers on LPL teams ahead of 2019 LoL World Championship
William Davis
League of Legends
Sorry Cloud9 and Team Liquid, WWE superstar and actor John Cena is rooting for the LPL teams in the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. The wrestler recently sent a cheer to the LPL teams, and if the video wasn’t enough of a surprise, he did it in perfect Mandarin. “My WWE friends Austin and Cesaro told me that LPL is one of the most famous esports brands in China. …
LoL patch 9.18 nerfs Aatrox and Akali, adds Star Guardian skins
William Davis
League of Legends
Patch 9.18 is going live on September 11, and it brings new skins and changes to a long list of champions. The highlights are the nerfs to Aatrox and Akali, the new Star Guardian skins, and surprisingly enough, Ekko’s buff. Heading to the 2019 LoL World Championship, Riot Games is tweaking and twisting a large number of champions. Despite the number of champions listed in the patch notes, the changes …
TFT patch 9.18 adds new loot system, buff Akali and Wild trait
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s time for Patch 9.18 and a new TFT update! The most recent League of Legends patch brings interesting changes to TFT, starting with the mystery boxes. Patch 9.18 introduces a new mystery box system that completely changes the game experience. There are three kinds of boxes, common, uncommon, and rare. Each box includes gold, items components, full items, champions, and the new consumable Neeko’s Help. Neeko’s Help is a …
Fnatic fined over one million SEK for not paying payroll taxes
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Fnatic is in trouble with the Swedish Tax Agency. The European organization has been fined for over one million SEK after not paying payroll taxes in 2016 and 2017. Fnatic was found guilty of not properly paying employer contributions and tax surcharges after asking to not only be exempt from the fines but also reimbursed for agency costs in their appeal. Fnatic first came under fire when some players in …
G2 Esports announces expanded partnership with Red Bull
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
G2 Esports has announced a new, multi-year partnership with Red Bull. The two companies will collaborate on making unique, engaging content. The rollout has already seen Red Bull branding mobilized across G2’s teams in League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Rainbow Six, and more. G2 CEO Carlos “ocelote” Rodriguez explained that both entities already had a good relationship and shared many of the same goals. “This holistic partnership is a …
Riot Games delivers new info on Fantasy LCS progress, release date
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is giving the community a sneak peak at its plans for the upcoming redesigned Fantasy LCS platform In March, LCS commissioner Chris Greeley responded to the community’s questions regarding the Fantasy League. Greeley promised everyone that Riot planned to have something to show by spring 2020. He said that the team behind the Fantasy LCS revival was aiming to create something “head and shoulders above” their previous products. …
LPL and Nike unveil new team jersey designs for 2020
William Davis
League of Legends
The LPL and Nike have revealed the new team kits for the 2020 LPL Spring season. Earlier this year, Nike became the official shoe and clothing provider for the teams competing in the LPL, the highest level of pro League of Legends play in China. At the moment, 16 organization take part in the competition, and two more are set to join next year. The reveal took place before the regional …
G2 Esports’ Jankos wins 2019 LEC Summer MVP award
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports’ jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski is the 2019 LEC Summer MVP. On Sunday, Jankos added two awards to his trophy case: the LEC Summer championship and the season MVP. The jungler was voted on by his peers, the LEC broadcast team, and media as the most valuable player of the season. A team like G2 is not just about the individual performances since all five players have the ability …
Invictus Gaming qualify for 2019 LoL World Championship
William Davis
News
Invictus Gaming will defend its title at the 2019 World Championship. The defending champion took down Top Esports in the second round of the LPL regional gauntlet and secured the final spot at Worlds. Invictus is heading to Europe as China’s third seed. Due to the LPL’s recent success, Invictus will seed directly to the main event instead of going through the play-in stage. It has been a rocky road …
Huni says Clutch Gaming’s goal is the playoffs at Worlds 2019
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Clutch Gaming is going to the 2019 World Championship. The underdog team took Team SoloMid to game five, defeating their rivals to become the third seed for North America. After today’s intense reverse sweep, Clutch will be representing the region at Worlds in Europe along with Cloud9 and Team Liquid. “Holy shit. This is surreal. I just feel we went through so much shit this split. So much shit I …
Clutch Gaming headed to Worlds with reverse sweep win over TSM
William Davis
League of Legends
Clutch Gaming is going to the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. The squad completed its miracle gauntlet run with a victory over Team SoloMid. In previous seasons, Clutch would’ve been the underdog in this series. However, throughout playoffs and the regional qualifiers, the team solidified itself as a true contender in the LCS. Now, Clutch is going to Worlds as North America’s third seed. They still have to go …
G2 Esports wins back-to-back LEC titles by defeating Fnatic
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports is the 2019 LEC Summer champion! G2 took down Fnatic after five intense games. The back-to-back champion-winning team is now heading to the 2019 League of Legends World Championship as the number one seed of the LEC. The series got off to an explosive start, with both teams looking for a fight early. It all began with Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle and Zdravets “Hylissang” Iliev Galabov going head-to-head …
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
Lindsey Stirling teases World Championship song with Riot Games
By
William Davis
League of Legends
Many buffs and nerfs are planned for LoL patch 9.19 before Worlds
By
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
OpTic Gaming CEO H3cz leaves team, joins NRG Esports as co-CEO
By
Steven Rondina
