League of Legends
League of Legends
LEC Summer Split is the most viewed pro split since 2015
Nina Forneloza
League of Legends developer Riot Games has recently announced that the current Summer Split of the 2019 LEC has recorded the highest viewership figures for any regular season split since 2015. Riot reported in April a record breaking debut split of the LEC, and this recent announcement continues to speak to that success. In the opening three weeks of the league, viewing figures were an impressive 37% higher than this …
League of Legends
TSM and Logitech continue esports sponsorship agreement
M Alzamora
Team SoloMid and Logitech have come to terms on a three-year extension of their long-running partnership. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed. If previous perks of the sponsorship are anything to go by, TSM’s financial benefits will come in the form of free Logitech gear for players, travel and lodgings, and likely a hefty sum of cash to play around with. In turn, Logitech gets to tie its name …
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 return to LCK with crushing win over Hanwha
William Davis
SK Telecom T1 might just be on a hot streak. The LCK spring champions destroyed Hanwha Life Esports in their return to the LCK and are climbing in the standings. The team returned to their league with the aggressive style they tinkered with at Rift Rivals 2019. In game one, SKT showed a new look with Lee “Effort” Sang-ho in the support role. Despite that tweak the team played a …
League of Legends
Misfits and Outerstuff launch new line of esports apparel
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Misfits Gaming and Outerstuff are partnering up to launch a line of esports and gaming apparel. CEO and co-founder of Misfits Ben Spoont has said that even though esports has a large and passionate fanbase, the fanbase doesn’t yet have the needed availability of licensed apparel worldwide. “As a team owner myself, I’ve experienced firsthand the many issues relating to designing, manufacturing, and distributing the apparel that fans are clamoring …
League of Legends
Cloud9 score big upset of Team Liquid, join 5-way tie for first in LCS
William Davis
Cloud9 is putting their embarrassing Rift Rivals 2019 performance behind them and look ready to take over the LCS. The first round robin of the summer season wrapped up with Cloud9 scoring a huge win over Team Liquid. Despite looking unsteady in recent outings, the team is now in a tie for first place in the LCS. After riding the bench last week due to illness, bottom laner Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi …
League of Legends
LPL sweeps LMS and VCS in Rift Rivals, takes on LCK in finals
William Davis
The LPL is heading to the grand finals of Rift Rivals 2019. For the third year in a row, the LPL and the LCK are meeting in the final stage of the event. The Chinese side earned their spot there by sweeping the LMS and VCS team 3-0 in the semifinals. Flash Wolves and JD Gaming were the starters for the best of five series. Throughout the tournament, Flash Wolves …
League of Legends
Bjergsen: “NA needs to step it up” after rough Rift Rivals showing
Nina Forneloza
The 2019 Rift Rivals NA vs. EU tournament was a forgettable one for North American fans, but there are still lessons that can be learned from it. With the dust still settling from the event, Team SoloMid mid laner Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg opened up on the tournament and the LCS’s rough outing. Though many were doom and gloom about the state of the LCS, Bjergsen stated that important lessons were …
League of Legends
Riot Games partners up to launch new DACH league
Syed Mujtaba Naqvi
Riot Games is launching a League of Legends national league for the DACH region in partnership with Freaks 4U Gaming and Lagardère Sports. DACH region includes Germany (D), Austria (A), and Switzerland (CH). The new league will be a direct product of this long-term partnership as an expansion of the Premier Tour circuit in 2020. The league will be exclusive to German-speaking teams as the collaboration of the three strong …
Invictus Gaming roars at Rift Rivals with wins over SKT, Flash Wolves
William Davis
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming looks to be in top form for Rift Rivals 2019. The defending world champions made their debut on day two of Rift Rivals 2019. There, the squad closed the group stage with two decisive victories. IG’s day started with a match against Flash Wolves from the LMS. The LPL representatives struggled early but made a strong comeback in the mid game by punishing Flash Wolves’ reckless aggression. From …
LCK earns spot in Rift Rivals grand finals, looks to end curse
William Davis
League of Legends
The LCK has seeded directly into the Rift Rivals 2019 finals. Damwon Gaming, Griffin, Kingzone DragonX, and SK Telecom T1 combined for seven wins in the group stage. That tally puts the Korean teams in first place, followed by the LPL with five victories. The coalition of the LMS and VCS finished third with no wins. Since its creation in 2017, Rift Rivals has been the Achilles’ heel for the …
Teamfight Tactics update changes item drops, adds ranked play
Jared Wynne
League of Legends
Riot Games is making major changes to its new Teamfight Tactics game mode. Teamfight Tactics has only been live for about a week and players are going crazy for it. Riot pushed some major changes to the game mode on its PBE server. These changes include the introduction of ranked play, changes to item drops, and various champion balance changes. Ranked testing is now live on PBE. Currently, five matches …
MikeYeung joins Echo Fox, replaces Rush on LCS roster
Nina Forneloza
League of Legends
Talented American jungler Mike “MikeYeung” Yeung is back in the LCS after making a surprise move to Echo Fox from Team Liquid Academy. The announcement came in an entertaining video in which Mike is unveiled from a cardboard box simply labelled as merchandise. In a statement from Team Liquid, the esports organization thanked MikeYeung for his hard work. “Thanks for the hard work, dedication, and all the laughs Mike. Good …
Kingzone DragonX upsets FunPlus Phoenix at Rift Rivals, LCK starts 4-0
William Davis
League of Legends
Kingzone DragonX pulled off a major upset at Rift Rivals 2019. The LCK added another win to the scoreboard with Kingzone’s victory over FunPlus Phoenix. Though FunPlus stand as the LPL’s best, they seemingly didn’t stand a chance against a determined Kingzone. The teams locked in standard compositions with few innovations. In the top lane, Kim “Rascal” Kwang-hee stole Kled from mid laner Kim “Doinb” Tae-sang. This forced him to …
SK Telecom T1 start Rift Rivals 2019 with win over Flash Wolves
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 didn’t improve their standing in the LCK but found an important win this week. The Korean side is off to a good start at Rift Rivals 2019. SKT started the tournament with a dominant victory over LMS representatives Flash Wolves. Flash Wolves is one of the most popular teams in their region, with the squad finding some international relevance over the years. Unfortunately, the organization is going …
Immortals CEO Ari Segal discusses imminent return to the LCS
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Since Immortals Gaming Club announced the acquisition of Infinite Esports, the parent company of OpTic Gaming and the Houston Outlaws, League of Legends fans have been wondering about the return of Immortals to the LCS. According to Immortals CEO Ari Segal, OpTic Gaming will retain its branding for the remainder of the 2019 LCS season. Then the team will rebrand in 2020, marking Immortals’ first time in the LCS since …
Tarzaned banned, receives two-week suspension for boosting
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Famed League of Legends streamer Tarzaned just received a two-week ban for account boosting. During a live stream, Riot Games issued Tarzaned the ban for allegedly boosting another account after a solo queue game. Tarzaned appeared suprised by the ban on stream and didn’t seem to know why it was happening at first, though he also seemed to recognize the reason for the ban after reading the notification. “It doesn’t …
Twitch subscriber streams could violate TOS in popular games
Nina Forneloza
League of Legends
A new feature from Twitch, subscriber streams, will allow content creators to stream exclusively to those users who have paid a subscription to their channel. Users currently can watch any channel’s content for free, or can choose to subscribe to channels in order to access a small number of privileges. The decision has been met with mixed reactions. Some feel that subscription-only streams will reduce toxicity and unpleasant messages in …
Teamfight Tactics celebrates ranked mode with Showdown tournament
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The first-ever Teamfight Tactics tournament has just been announced. Riot Games released an official press release for the first Teamfight Tactics event. Sixty-four Twitch streamers will battle for “bragging rights” in the game’s first competitive tournament on July 17 and 18. The two-day Twitch Rivals event has a $125,000 prize pool. The first day will feature two groups of 32 players, compting for a spot in the second day’s top …
Team Liquid is charting a path to global esports domination
Jared Wynne
League of Legends
Team Liquid deposed the mighty Astralis and stormed to the top of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive rankings this month following emphatic victories at IEM Sydney and DreamHack Masters Dallas. This sustained brilliance drew plaudits from competitive gaming fans and signalled the dawn of a new era in CS:GO. Yet it was just the latest in a long list of triumphs for Liquid, which is officially the most successful esports …
LEC crushes LCS in Rift Rivals despite strong showing from Team Liquid
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports, Origen, and Fnatic are returning to the LEC as champions. Europe has won Rift Rivals 2019. The LEC representatives dominated the LCS teams and made a case for themselves as the top contenders for the 2019 World Championship. The three-day event was not fun to watch for North American fans. Throughout the group stage, the LEC destroyed the best teams from across the Atlantic and had firm control …
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.
