League of Legends
League of Legends
2019 LCK summer playoffs schedule set for SKT, Griffin, more
William Davis
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 …
League of Legends
LoL Clash test release date announced for North America
gabhernandez
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 …
League of Legends
Offline mode possibly coming to League of Legends soon
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
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
Cain wins LCS Coach of the Split, FakeGod awarded Rookie of the Split
William Davis
Riot Games revealed the 2019 LCS Summer Rookie of the Split and Coach of the Split. The votes are in and the winners of these important categories were revealed ahead of the 2019 LCS Summer Playoffs semifinals. 100 Thieves’ top laner Aaron “FakeGod” Lee was awarded Rookie of the Split honors. FakeGod joined 100 Thieves Academy back in 2018, after being spotted at the Scouting Grounds event where he …
League of Legends
Deman returning to League of Legends to cast LCS Summer Playoffs
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
After years away from casting League of Legends, Leigh “Deman” Smith is returning to the game. Speaking on Twitter, the longtime commentator and host revealed that he will be hosting an official cast for the LCS Summer Playoffs semifinals. Dan “Foxdrop” Wyatt will serve as his co-host. Deman was a popular League of Legends caster for the European LCS, today known as League of Legends European Championship. Though fans enjoyed …
League of Legends
Coca Cola selling exclusive LoL-themed bottles in Turkey
William Davis
League of Legends merch is getting better by the year. Coca Cola has released a set of League of Legends-themed bottles in Turkey. The drinks featuring the images of champions like Irelia, Lucian, Lee Sin, Vayne, Yasuo, Blitzcrank, Kayn, and many others hit the shelves of a number of major convenience stores in the country. The League of Legends-themed bottles include an exclusive code that can be used in-game to …
League of Legends
Jin Air Green Wings becomes first LCK team to post a winless split
William Davis
The recent series between Jin Air Green Wings and Griffin in the 2019 LCK Summer Season wound up being a surprisingly important one. On one hand, the victory puts Griffin fingertips away from finishing the regular season in first place and qualifying for the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. On the other, the defeat put Jin Air in the LoL history books as the first team to end a regular season …
League of Legends
FC Schalke 04 upsets G2 Esports in final week of LEC Summer Split
William Davis
FC Schalke 04 is ending the regular season on a high note. The fourth-ranked LEC team pulled off a major upset versus G2 Esports, toppling one of the strongest teams in the world. Though both already had a spot in the playoffs locked up before the clash on Friday, the victory shows that no team is safe. True to its style, G2 locked in a creative and surprising composition. Top laner …
LEC partners with Pringles, gives away skins for LEC Summer final
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
Riot Games has announced it has partnered up with Pringles for the upcoming League of Legends European Championship Summer Finals. Pringles, the Kellogg Company’s canned potato chip brand, will be distributing around 115 million Pringles cans featuring a code for the partnership’s raffles. League players and Pringles consumers across Europe will be able to enter a daily raffle that will reward two players with a legacy skin. The raffle will …
G2 Esports recruits Hafu as debut Teamfight Tactics player
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports is extending its reach of influence into Teamfight Tactics by adding popular player Rumay “Hafu” Wang to its streaming roster. The official G2 Esports Twitter account sent out a video in which founding CEO Carlos Rodriguez discussed the growing popularity of TFT. Towards the end of the video, Rodriguez reveals that Hafu will be joining the organization due to her high level of play and experience in the …
Teamfight Tactics’ highly experimental changes coming to PBE
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Despite Teamfight Tactics receiving a major update in Patch 9.16, Riot is already discussing some game-changing future alterations. The auto-battler’s lead designer, Riot Mort, took to Twitter to discuss some big changes the team is considering. The future patches seem to mostly revolve around healing and anti-heal mechanics, including updates to items that would dramatically affect evolve the game’s meta and playstyle. The changes are currently on the Public Beta …
Riot Games is selling Echo Fox’s LCS slot to a new buyer
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
League of Legends
After over two months of the drama related to Echo Fox’s ownership and investors, Riot Games has decided to terminate the organization’s participation in the League of Legends Championship Series. The Echo Fox drama is finally coming to an end in the LCS, as Riot has announced its North American franchised league and Echo Fox have agreed to vacate Echo Fox’s current LCS spot. This follows Riot having given Echo …
SK Telecom T1 may miss playoffs after losing to Damwon Gaming
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 is in a very bad spot in the 2019 LCK Summer Split. SKT dropped a critical match versus Damwon Gaming and might miss the playoffs as a result. Damwon moved up to first place as a result of their victory and secured a place in the next round of the competition. SKT is coming off a loss to Hanwha Life Esports and needed this victory to hold …
New League of Legends champion may have leaked in PBE update
M Alzamora
League of Legends
The Public Beta Environment is gearing up for whatever developer Riot Games has planned for League of Legends 9.17, and hints of an unreleased champion are sitting in the game’s latest files. The picture shows what appears to be a female human. She features a layer of medium-length hair, blue eyes, and semi-modest attire, including a hot pink scarf shown blowing in the wind and a halter top that stops …
Teamfight Tactics patch 9.16 redesigns Demons, adds Hextech
William Davis
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics is getting its first update as a permanent game mode in League of Legends. Earlier this month, Riot Games announced it is retiring the Twisted Treeline map and will keep Teamfight Tactics available for the foreseeable future. The developers said they would be updating the game on a regular basis and Patch 9.16 shows that they are living up to that promise. The beta pass is making …
League of Legends patch 9.16 hits the top picks in pro play
William Davis
League of Legends
League of Legends Patch 9.16 is loaded and ready to go. The most recent League of Legends update brings a new look for an old champion and changes in the most popular champions in pro play. Patch 9.16 brings the Pantheon rework. The champion got an improved kit and a necessary visual update. The new Pantheon hit the PBE server a couple of weeks ago and now is available …
2019 LCS Summer MVP finalists revealed, Liquid dominates
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games has revealed the top ten 2019 LCS Summer Split Honda MVP finalists. At the end of the split, the most valuable player of the season is voted on by his peers, the media, and the LCS broadcast team. This summer, Riot Games shared the list of the top ten finalists for the award. Four out of the ten players on the list are from Team Liquid. Top laner …
Riot developer proposes big ability changes for jungler Ivern
William Davis
League of Legends
Big changes for Ivern may be on their way following a few rough years of performance for the lanky nature lover. Ivern arrived in October 2016 and ever since then Riot Games has struggled to balance the Green Father. He currently has one of the lowest play rates among all champions and doesn’t excel in any assigned role. Game designer at Riot Games Blake Smith took to Twitter to propose …
Clutch Gaming LirA says confidence will take Clutch to Worlds
Olivia Richman
News
Despite some people expecting an easy win for Team SoloMid, Clutch Gaming was able to take down their favored opponents 3-1 in the quarterfinals. Now, Clutch is on their way to play in the semifinals against Team Liquid, the best team in the LCS. It’s a tough road ahead, but jungler Nam “LirA” Tae-yoo believes that his team can make it to the finals if they remain confident. WIN.gg spoke with …
Team Liquid pick Clutch Gaming for LCS Summer semifinals
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Team Liquid have picked Clutch Gaming as their opponents in the LCS Summer Split semifinals. That leaves Counter Logic Gaming to face Cloud9 in the semis after a quarterfinal victory over OpTic Gaming. In an interview with WIN.gg over the weekend, Clutch Gaming’s Sun “Cody Sun” Li-Yu stated that he wanted Team Liquid to pick his team for the semifinals. He also added that he’s confident in his team in this …
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
SK Telecom T1 starts LCK playoffs run with victory over Afreeca Freecs
By
William Davis
League of Legends
Eat Like a Pro cooking show features LEC players and coaches
By
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Doublelift compares himself to Uzi heading into LCS summer final
By
Nina Forneloza
