League of Legends
League of Legends
A closer look at the new MSI theme song, “Bring Home the Glory”
Olivia Richman
Riot has revealed the 2019 Mid-Season Invitational’s theme song. Called “Bring Home the Glory,” the powerful lyrics about fighting for victory with the world watching are sung by Sara Skinner. The straightforward lyrics paint the perfect picture for May’s major tournament, the second biggest on the League of Legends calendar. While listening to this song, it’s not difficult to picture the top teams battling it out for their region’s …
League of Legends
Dragon Gate Team barred from LMS after match fixing allegations
Steven Rondina
Dragon Gate Team of the LMS is embroiled in a serious scandal. The Hong Kong-based League of Legends organization has been removed from its regional league due to alleged match fixing. The LMS announced the news on its website. The LMS received reports that the team was taking measures to ensure it lost games during the 2019 LMS Spring Split. Upon receiving these reports, the LMS conducted an investigation into …
League of Legends
CoreJJ is the key for Team Liquid and NA at MSI 2019
William Davis
The memory of the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational is still fresh in the minds of Team Liquid players and fans. The preceding spring split resulted in the first domestic title for the organization and the first appearance on an international stage at a Riot event. But even after a split full of domestic accomplishment, reality hit Team Liquid hard. Underwhelming was the best word to describe TL’s performance at MSI last …
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming defeat JD Gaming, capture first domestic title
William Davis
Invictus Gaming is the 2019 LPL Spring Split champion, as the current world champion took down JD Gaming in a quick series. IG achieved its first domestic title in a convincing series against JDG. Since its founding in 2011, IG has struggled to find ultimate success in the LPL. In 2018, the organization signed young bot laner prodigy Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo and the team’s look changed completely. The team came …
League of Legends
Riot Games has a new logo and not everyone is happy about it
Olivia Richman
Riot Games has revealed a newly redesigned logo. The League of Legends developer announced its logo refresh in a recent blog post. “As technology changed and we began playing in new environments, it became clear that the logo we used for so long and had grown so fond of needed a rework,” Riot Games said. Working closely with company founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck, designers came up with a …
League of Legends
Gen.G raises $46M through investors including Will Smith
Olivia Richman
Esports organization Gen.G has raised $46 million through various celebrity investors and Silicon Valley funds. Actor Will Smith and Japanese soccer player Keisuke Honda provided capital through Dreamers Fund. They have joined retired NBA player Chris Bosh in advising Gen.G’s creative and commercial efforts. Los Angeles Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong and Alibaba Group’s former chair of US investments Michael Zeisser were also among the latest investors. Stanford University invested …
League of Legends
League of Legends receives patch 9.8 before Mid-Season Invitational
Steven Rondina
The last set of changes before League of Legends’ 2019 Mid-Season Invitational has arrived. Patch 9.8 has launched, bringing adjustments to 16 different heroes and a number of items. It also adds a number of new skins, including a set commemorating Invictus Gaming’s victory at the 2018 League of Legends World Championship. While version 9.8 has a long list of heroes that have been changed, none have received an extensive …
League of Legends
Clutch Gaming owners sell majority stake, set for Dignitas rebrand
William Davis
Clutch Gaming’s ownership at the Houston Rockets has agreed to sell a majority stake in their League of Legends esports team to Dignitas parent company Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. HBSE will own 68.2% of Clutch Gaming, while the Houston Rockets will retain the remaining 31.8% stake. Ownership of the team will be shared between the two companies through a newly created entity named Mal País. Clutch Gaming will also …
SKT returns to international stage after sweeping Griffin
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 is the 2019 LCK Spring Split champion and is going back to the Mid-Season Invitational. The spring season in Korea was all about Griffin and SKT. These two teams took over the league and destroyed the competition. Coming into the final, opinions on who might win were mixed. Griffin was the king of the regular season, but when it matters most, the young squad has failed to …
G2 dominate Origen in LEC spring final to secure MSI ticket
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports was crowned 2019 LEC Spring champion after a one-sided series versus Origen. G2 put on a show for the audience at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam. The three-game series showed the best and craziest side of the new champion. Not one to shy away from crazy trends, G2 locked in Sona and Taric in game one. OG already had experience taking down this combination, but struggled to translate …
Team Liquid win third straight LCS title with reverse sweep of TSM
William Davis
League of Legends
Team Liquid is the 2019 LCS Spring Split champion, as the squad has achieved its third consecutive title after a win over Team SoloMid. The spring season has come to an end after four months of intense competition. Ten teams started this journey but only two could make it to the final stage in St. Louis. The two deserving contenders met at the Chaifetz Arena. On one side, Team Liquid …
Origen upsets Fnatic to set LEC finals rematch with G2 Esports
William Davis
League of Legends
Origen is ready for round two against G2 Esports as the team made it to the LEC spring finals after a victory over Fnatic. OG is getting a second chance against G2 but the squad first had to go through Fnatic. Coming into this match, many favored Fnatic considering the dominating performance the team had in the final weeks of the regular season. In game one, Fnatic opted for Sona …
SK Telecom signs a new partnership with Riot Games Korea
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom and Riot Games Korea have announced a new sponsorship deal. SK Telecom, the parent company to popular League of Legends team SK Telecom T1, signed a new partnership agreement with Riot Games Korea. As part of the new deal, the telecom company now holds the rights to broadcast the LCK on its own video service, oksusu. The broadcasting is set to start on April 13 during the 2019 …
Famed jungler Trick returns to Europe to join FC Schalke 04
William Davis
League of Legends
LEC team FC Schalke 04 has signed four-time EU LCS champion Kim “Trick” Gang-yun. Schalke is adding a new name to its LEC roster, as Trick is making what the team hopes will be a triumphant return to Europe. Known primarily for his time at G2 Esports, Trick first made a name for himself in the European pro scene. Wearing G2’s uniform, the jungler competed in the 2017 Mid-Season Invitational …
The Weeknd invests in OverActive Media, owner of Splyce and Defiant
William Davis
League of Legends
Popular Canadian R&B musical artist The Weeknd has invested in OverActive Media, the parent company of Splyce and the Toronto Defiant. Splyce currently has a professional League of Legends team in the LEC, the top tier of pro League competition in Europe. The organization also boasts a pro Call of Duty team, a Rocket League team, a Smite team, and a StarCraft team. While Splyce also owns the Toronto Defiant, …
Riot Games plans big changes to the League of Legends item shop
William Davis
League of Legends
Big changes are coming to the item shop, Riot Games announced through the latest edition of Dev Corner. The item shop is going through a deep cleanup and will have a completely new look by the end of the year 2019. According to the announcement shared on the Riot Games message boards, the developers behind League of Legends are looking to remove and rework existing items and add new ones. …
Reapered coach of the split, V1per rookie of the split for LCS spring
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games awarded Cloud9’s Bok “Reapered” Han-gyu as coach of the spring split and FlyQuest’s top laner Omran “V1per” Shoura as rookie of the split. Cloud9 and FlyQuest might already be out of the playoffs, but the teams are at least taking two big individual prizes home at the split’s conclusion. V1per was named the rookie of the split after a remarkable season as the starting top laner for FlyQuest. …
Team Liquid was the most viewed esports organization in 2018
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Esports Charts recently released detailed esports viewership statistics for 2018, and there were some pretty surprising outcomes. The first category sorted was “Most Popular Esports Tournaments,” which could be calculated by both hours watched and peak viewers numbers. The League of Legends World Championship took the first spot, with 78.8 million total hours watched. This was followed by The International, with 64 million hours watched. There weren’t too many shockers in …
Riot Games gives in to fan outcry, changes prestige point acquisition
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is adding a new method for gaining prestige points in response to community complaints. Product manager Adriaan “KenAdamsNSA” Noordzij took to the League of Legends community boards to share Riot’s early plans in revising prestige point acquisition. The first major change is the ability to simply purchase a bundle containing 100 prestige points, allowing the player to trade those points in for a prestige skin. The second is …
SK Telecom T1 survive three scrappy games, beat Kingzone DragonX
William Davis
League of Legends
SK Telecom T1 is looking ready for the LCK Spring Split final after a win over Kingzone DragonX. The Kingzone team that rolled over Damwon Gaming in the previous round could not take a single game from three-time world champion SKT. The 3-0 victory puts SKT in the final against the number one team from the regular season, Griffin. In game one, jungler Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan locked in Vi. 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.
