League of Legends
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics developer calls spectate mode “high priority”
Olivia Richman
Teamfight Tactics may be getting a spectate mode sometime in the near future. Riot researcher Nathan “Blaustoise” Blau had the autobattler’s lead designer, Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer, on a stream with him yesterday. While playing Teamfight Tactics, the two participated in a Q&A session with fans. One viewer asked if there were plans for a spectator mode. “Absolutely. Absolutely. We are working on that. It takes time, but absolutely,” Mortdog said. He …
League of Legends
HBO series Ballers to integrate esports in its new fifth season
M Alzamora
HBO Series Ballers returns for a fifth season this year, and League of Legend esports will play a big role. Developer Riot Games confirmed as much during the LCS finals action with a minute-long trailer for the show The show follows retired football player Spencer Strasmore, portrayed by Hollywood megastar and ex-pro wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who wants to stay around the business by running a sports management agency. …
League of Legends
Broken Blade accidentally reveals private TSM “mistake sheet”
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Team SoloMid’s League of Legends mid laner Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik accidentally leaked the team’s “action tracker” sheet during a live stream. The Google Sheet tracks the daily and weekly totals of mistakes made by TSM’s players during practice. It seems as though TSM’s coaching is using negative reinforcement methods to improve the skill of its players. This means they’re focusing on fixing problems by pointing out the tiniest mistakes, …
League of Legends
League of Legends to receive new Star Guardians skins
William Davis
League of Legends players are likely about to get a new addition to the Star Guardians skin set. The League of Legends Twitter account tweeted out a teaser for something related to the Star Guardians. The post included a screengrab of Ahri’s hand holding three damaged gems from the “A New Horizon” trailer, and a quote that reads, “I will find you before her darkness burns you all away.” This …
League of Legends
FC Schalke 04 takes out Team Vitality in 2019 LEC Summer Playoffs
William Davis
FC Schalke 04 is headed to the second round of the 2019 LEC Summer Playoffs. Schalke took down Team Vitality with a 3-1 series victory. They entered as the favorite to win the match, and lived up to that billing. They still face long odds when it comes to beating the likes of G2 Esports, but this is a team that cannot be underestimated. Vitality started game one with a …
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 rolls over Damwon Gaming in LCK playoffs
William Davis
SK Telecom T1’s victory over Damwon Gaming was a two-for-one deal. The popular organization punched its ticket to the 2019 LCK Summer Finals and the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. What many expected to be a competitive series ended up being a massacre, as SKT ran through Damwon Gaming with little trouble. The squad is looking stronger than ever as it looks to lock up its second consecutive split championship. …
League of Legends
CLG reverse sweeps Clutch Gaming in LCS playoffs third-place match
William Davis
Counter Logic Gaming pulled off an incredible reverse sweep against Clutch Gaming. That locks up a third-place finish for the team in the 2019 LCS Summer Playoffs. Clutch had them against the ropes with two consecutive wins but CLG was able to settle down and win their way out of the tricky spot. Clutch Gaming took game one in convincing fashion. In pick and bans, CLG took Qiyana in the first round …
League of Legends
TheShy is the only Invictus Gaming player in the LPL All-Pro team
William Davis
Many believe there is a curse when it comes to the League of Legends World Championship, where the winner is doomed to struggle the following year. That’s likely a superstition, but Invictus Gaming’s season has certainly helped to reinforce this idea. The LPL revealed the 2019 LPL Summer Split All-Pro team and only one player from the defending champions made the cut. Top laner Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok is the lone …
LEC Summer Playoffs kick off with Rogue upsetting Splyce
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2019 LEC Summer playoffs are off to a surprising start. Despite entering with a young squad, Rogue opened the playoffs with an upset win over Splyce. Out of the five players on the team, only Oskar “Vander” Bogdan has LEC playoffs experience. The rest of the squad is angling for a championship for the first time, but showed no nerves under a brighter spotlight. Rogue is one of the up-and-coming teams …
SK Telecom T1 destroys Sandbox, moves to LCK playoffs semifinals
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 is moving on to the 2019 LCK Summer Playoffs semifinals after demolishing Sandbox Gaming. The second round of the playoffs was not as close as many expected. Sandbox looked disorganized and overall lost on the rift, allowing SKT to close the series with a clean 3-0. They will face Damwon Gaming next. SKT started the series with a convincing victory. In pick and bans, Sandbox went for …
2019 LEC summer playoffs schedule features G2 and Fnatic rivalry
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2019 LEC summer playoffs start on Friday with the top six teams this season competing for a spot at the final in Athens. G2 Esports already secured a spot at the 2019 Worlds Championship, where they will look to continue their international dominance. Splyce and Rogue will kick off the 2019 LEC Summer playoffs. Rogue comes into the match as the underdog, as this is a young roster that lacks …
Cloud9 and Team Liquid prepare to face off for LCS summer title
Nina Forneloza
League of Legends
The grand final for the 2019 League of Legends LCS Summer Split has been decided. Cloud9 will face Team Liquid for the biggest domestic trophy in North American League of Legends.. Team Liquid enters the finals having defeated Clutch Gaming in a series that went all the way to its fifth and final game. Clutch Gaming defied expectations by taking two games from the reigning LCS champions and Mid-Season Invitational …
Teamfight Tactics patch 9.16b nerfs Draven, Jinx, brawlers
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics has gotten a new patch update with, Riot Games implementing patch 9.16b on August 21. This mid-cycle patch mostly includes balance changes to various units. Draven has been perceived thus far as a permier solo carry in TFT. However, the new patch lowers both his health, from 700 to 650, and his attack damage, from 75 to 70. Although he continues to be strong, he’s not the dominant …
League of Legends patch 9.17 to nerf Qiyana, buff Pantheon, more
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
League of Legends patch 9.17 is scheduled to go live on August 28. Riot Games has shared what kinds of nerfs and buffs champions will likely receive this time around. As Riot is preparing for the new patch, the title’s lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter shared on Twitter the list of champions that will be getting rebalanced. Qiyana is the only champion getting nerfed in this patch, while many …
SK Telecom T1 starts LCK playoffs run with victory over Afreeca Freecs
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 is moving to the second round of the 2019 LCK Summer Playoffs after a victory over Afreeca Freecs. The match was the first playoffs series worldwide to be played on Patch 9.16. The live update drastically changed the meta, hitting some of the most popular champions in professional play. The draft had a number of surprises take place. Bottom laner Kim “Aiming” Ha-ram continued to pick …
Eat Like a Pro cooking show features LEC players and coaches
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The LEC has premiered a cooking show series on YouTube. The aim of the program, which already has four episodes, is to watch League of Legends pros prepare typical dishes from their home countries to help fans get to know them a bit better. The series is hosted by Trevor “Quickshot” Henry, an LoL commentator, and Romain Bigeard, OpTic Gaming’s former general manager. Bigeard is now part of the LEC …
Doublelift compares himself to Uzi heading into LCS summer final
Nina Forneloza
League of Legends
Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, the star AD carry for North American League of Legends squad Team Liquid, has made some bold comments about his form for the upcoming World Championship and LCS finals. Team Liquid will face Cloud9 in the final of the 2019 LCS Summer Split. If they win, it will be the fourth consecutive LCS title for Liquid and will cement Team Liquid’s place in history as the first …
2019 LCK summer playoffs schedule set for SKT, Griffin, more
William Davis
League of Legends
The stage is ready for the 2019 LCK summer playoffs. After ten dramatic weeks of competition, five teams made it to the next phase of the tournament. The LCK follows a King of the Hill format, as whoever wins moves up to the next round to play a higher seeded team. This is a single-elimination bracket that starts with a best-of-three wild card match. Starting in round two, all of …
LoL Clash test release date announced for North America
gabhernandez
League of Legends
Long awaited by fans across the region, Clash tests are set to hit North American League of Legends servers by August 24. The news was announced on the official LoL website. Much like previous tests, team creation will open up a few days beforehand, with players allowed to start drafting on August 19. Unlike previous iterations of Clash, the test will be condensed from Friday through Sunday, to just Saturday …
Offline mode possibly coming to League of Legends soon
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
League of Legends players have discovered what seems to be an offline mode within the game’s Public Beta Environment (PBE) server. Players have long been wanting an option to hide their in-game activity from their in-game friends. The offline mode, as the community has named it, has been asked for on numerous occasions on both Reddit and Riot Games’ official forums in the past. Riot is now possibly testing its …
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.
