League of Legends
League of Legends
G2 roll over Origen, book tickets to LEC final in Rotterdam
William Davis
G2 Esports is the first team confirmed for the LEC final in Rotterdam after a devastating victory over Origen. G2 is putting the negative results of the late season behind and showing why they are the number one team in Europe. The squad had three weeks off between the end of the regular season and round two of the playoffs, more than enough time to recover from recent losses. Many …
League of Legends
Riot Games end Rift Rivals in many regions around the world
William Davis
League of Legends’ Rift Rivals has effectively been canned for many of the world’s regions. In a press release on the Oceania League of Legends site, Riot Games declared it would be discontinuing all but two of the Rift Rivals regional tournaments. Competitions between North America and Europe, as well as LPL/LCK/LMS events, will continue. Events featuring other regions including Oceania, Japan, and more will not be returning. Riot Games …
League of Legends
TJ Sports opening training camp for Chinese LoL prospects
William Davis
TJ Sports has launched a training camp for new League of Legends talents in China. Tencent and Riot Games are opening a new training camp through their joint venture, TJ Sports. The application process began on March 18 when players were first given the chance to register. The three different selection processes will run through April 20. One of the selection events will take place at the internet coffee bar …
League of Legends
Fnatic continues LEC playoff roll with wild win over Splyce
William Davis
Fnatic is looking unstoppable in the LEC Spring Playoffs as the defending champion took down Splyce in round two. Fnatic came into the match highly favored after a convincing win against Team Vitality. Despite being the underdogs, Splyce put on a fight and exposed some of Fnatic’s weaknesses. In game one, Splyce tried to surprise Fnatic with a Zoe pick in the bottom lane. The strategy didn’t work and Fnatic …
League of Legends
Selfmade is rookie of LEC spring split, Guilhoto named top coach
William Davis
Riot Games announced jungler Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek as the LEC Rookie of the Spring Split and André “Guilhoto” Guilhoto as LEC Coach of the Spring Split. The votes are in and after a highly competitive season, SK Gaming’s jungler Selfmade was crowned the region’s top rookie. Selfmade received 123 points, surpassing Fnatic mid laner Tim “Nemesis” Lipovšek with 55 points and Splyce mid laner Marek “Humanoid” Brázda with 53. During …
League of Legends
Chovy named LCK MVP as Griffin dominates spring split awards
William Davis
Riot Games Korea has announced Griffin’s Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon as the regular season MVP of the LCK Spring Split, as the mid laner narrowly surpassed bot laner Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu. After an intense regular season, Chovy was crowned as the MVP of the season with 1,300 points, equivalent to 13 MVP awards. The mid laner was tied through the majority of the split with Deft from Kingzone DragonX, who finished …
League of Legends
Faker the only esports player on Forbes 2019 Asia 30 Under 30 list
Olivia Richman
Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok was recently named 30 Under 30 in Forbes Asia 2019 list. Named among athletes, musicians, and artists, Faker was the only esports player on Forbes “entertainment and sports” category. “Nicknamed god of computer game ‘League of Legends,’ Faker is generally regarded in the gaming community as the greatest LoL player of all time,” reads the official description. The listing goes on to list the 22-year-old gamer’s accomplishments, …
League of Legends
Butcher’s Bridge in ARAM, Urgot and Kayle nerfed in LoL patch 9.7
Steven Rondina
The latest League of Legends update brings changes to several runes, a handful of items, a dozen champions, and gives ARAM a big shakeup. Patch 9.7 has launched in the game and is highlighted by the return of Butcher’s Bridge in place of ARAM. It also brings larger overhauls to champions Kayle and Urgot. Butcher’s Bridge returns for the third year in a row, surfacing for the first time since …
100 Thieves release huhi after disappointing spring split
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
After an extremely disappointing LCS Spring Split, 100 Thieves has officially released mid laner Choi “huhi” Jae-hyun from its League of Legends roster. “Through all the challenges this LCS split, Jae’s work ethic, positivity, and professionalist always stood out,” the team said. 100 Thieves went on to wish huhi the best, noting that he’d be a “valuable addition” to any team he joins. As of now, huhi is a free agent. …
Riot reveals new World Championship skins for Invictus Gaming
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games has unveiled the Invictus Gaming World Championship skins, and the six skins are hitting the PBE server soon. Camille, Fiora, LeBlanc, Kai’Sa, Rakan, and Irelia were the champions chosen by Invictus Gaming. The new set of skins was unveiled through social media, and the video showed the altered abilities and new recall animations that include the players’ autographs. The color scheme was inspired by Chinese traditional watercolor paintings …
Tarzaned reaches Top 50 on Korean servers in just one week
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Tarzaned apparently got bored one day and decided to go from Diamond to the top 50 on Korean League of Legends servers in under a week. The Canadian streamer reported that he got to Masters rank with an 80 percent win rate, boasting 36 wins to just nine losses. Along the way, Tarzaned beat such top players as Jeong “Apdo” San-gil and none other than the legendary Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok, known …
Yassuo wins $10,000 ranked climb bet over fellow streamer Tyler1
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp owes Hammoudi “Yassuo” Abdalrhman $10,000. The two streamers made a bet earlier this month, seeing who could climb the highest in League of Legends with an unranked account. The only rules set by the Twitch personalities was that Tyler1 couldn’t use his favorite champion Draven, while Yassuo was banned from playing Yasuo. To the surprise of few, Yassuo came out on top, finishing with a Grandmaster rank and …
Sneaky Cat leads cats to victory in show match against Team Dog
gabhernandez
League of Legends
Preceeding the LCS quarterfinals, Riot released footage of a showmatch displaying Team Cat’s ultimate victory over Team Dog as part of the developer’s Cats vs. Dogs event. Leading the Cat team were Apromeow on support and Sneaky Cat on ADC. Aphromeow appeared to be of the Chartreux breed, while Sneaky Cat was a large Bambino. Their types harbored lower power in the early game, but provided needed scaling to Team …
100 Thieves CEO Nadeshot gives away $150,000 for no apparent reason
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
100 Thieves CEO Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag started his weekend by donating about $150,000 to his Twitter followers. “Woke up today feeling grateful. What’s your cashtag?” Nadeshot tweeted out, urging Twitter users to give him their Cash App identifier for a chance to have some free moolah transfered to their accounts. Nadeshot sent a screenshot of his $149,800 balance. Unsurprisingly, the tweet received more than 40,000 replies. When fans began to …
Splyce uses special forces veterans to improve performance in League
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
OverActive Media senior vice president Marty Strenczwilk said that hiring two U.S. military special forces veterans to work with Splyce and the Toronto Defiant has already yeiled positive results. In January, OverActive Media hired Patrick Sauer and Thomas Hall to work with the organization’s young pro gamers on leadership, relationship management, and conflict resolution skills. On March 17, Splyce finished second in the Call of Duty World League Fort Worth …
TSM blow past Echo Fox, look ahead to Cloud9 playoff series
William Davis
League of Legends
Team SoloMid is back on top after a decisive win over Echo Fox, and the squad is moving on to the semifinals where it will be facing Cloud9.TSM continues to dominate the LCS, as this time the team took down Echo Fox in a series of four matches.In game one, TSM tried to play through the top lane focusing on Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik. This strategy backfired as Echo Fox’s …
FlyQuest sail into LCS semifinals after rugged victory over Guardians
William Davis
League of Legends
FlyQuest has qualified to the LCS Spring semifinals with a victory against Golden Guardians.The playoffs were off to a good start after an exciting match between FlyQuest and Golden Guardians. The fourth and fifth seeds fought in a best-of-five full of team fights and surprising comebacks.In game one, Golden Guardians went for comfort picks like Karthus for mid laner Henrik “Froggen” Hansen. In the jungle, Juan “Contractz” Arturo Garcia picked …
Fnatic continues hot streak with sweep over Vitality in LEC playoff
William Davis
League of Legends
Fnatic is one step closer to Rotterdam after a quick and decisive victory over Team Vitality. Fnatic has its eyes on the prize and is clearly ready to fight for it. The squad had one of its best performances of the season against a Vitality that looked weak by comparison. Game one and two had similar drafts, with Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen picking Karthus in the Fnatic jungle and Tim “Nemesis” …
G2 Esports dominates LEC all-pro results after successful first split
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Europe is claiming to have the deepest player pool in the world after the inaugural split of the LEC has drawn to a close. As the LEC’s top six teams prepare for the playoffs, teams, casters, and journalists have weighed in on who they believe were the best players to set foot in the right this split. Five players took first place positions. Rasmus “Caps” Winther of G2 Esports had the highest …
Deft becomes ninth player to record 1,000 kills in the LCK
William Davis
League of Legends
Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu has celebrated his 1,000th kill in the LCK while playing against his former team KT Rolster. Considered one of the best bottom laners in the Korean region, Deft has accomplished several milestones since the start of his career in early 2013. Deft started with the since disbanded MVP Blue and then had a brief run with Samsung Blue. In 2014, Deft would have his first international experience …
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.
