League of Legends
League of Legends
Vaevictis sign five female players for new LCL pro team
William Davis
In a surprising move, Russian organization Vaevictis Esports has signed an all-female roster for the 2019 LCL Spring Split. The move comes after Riot Games Russia announced its plans to franchise the LCL in 2020. In January, Vaevictis announced a new roster that would compete in the 2019 LCL Open Cup. This tournament is organized by Riot Games Russia and takes place at the same time as the LCL regular …
League of Legends
Fnatic Rising looks to continue Fnatic legacy in UK
Olivia Richman
Fnatic is looking to dominate the United Kingdom League of Legends Championship with new team Fnatic Rising. Jordan “Shikari” Pointon, Daniel “Dan” Hockley, Matthew “xMatty” Coombs, and Tom “Prosfair” Willis are four Brits in the UKLC lineup who will be repping the black and orange. Their fifth and newest member is Sweden’s Felix “MagiFelix” Bostrom. The newly formed team will be based out of the Fnatic HQ’s new practice facilities …
League of Legends
Liquid remain unbeaten after fending off FlyQuest challenge
William Davis
Team Liquid found another to continue undefeated in the 2019 LCS Spring Split. The defending champions finished week three with six victories to zero losses, putting the side two points ahead of the second place Cloud9. On Saturday, Team Liquid faced FlyQuest, one of the strongest teams in the season so far. The game started with aggressive early trades, as FlyQuest showed a desire to engage and collected first blood …
League of Legends
Riot Games struggles with sexism, harassment, and identity
William Davis
While Riot Games has dedicated itself to battling in-game “toxicity” in League of Legends, the famed developer is having a difficult time confronting similar behaviors at its own workplace. Toxicity is commonly referred to in the gaming community as actions that create an unhealthy environment for other players. Riot Games actually popularized the term as a response to consistently negative player behaviors in its game. As Riot has made a …
LCS broadcaster Jatt retires, moves to development team
William Davis
News
The LCS is losing one of its top broadcasting talents. Popular League of Legends commentator and former pro player Josh “Jatt” Leesman has announced he is departing the esports scene to become a game designer at Riot Games. The prominent League personality revealed that he would be leaving LCS shoutcasting during a recent episode of the League of Legends esports podcast, “The Dive.” Jatt described how he had originally joined …
Riot’s API Challenge brings innovation and Yasuo bans
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot’s API Challenge brought out the best and brightest in the developer community. With 300,000 Riot Points on the line, developers who took part in the contest had five weeks to work on their projects. Developers of all skill levels participated, creating applications that interacted with Riot’s game client through the League Client APIs. According to Riot, one of the goals for the API Challenge was to “strengthen and empower …
G2 resist Vitality’s bot lane pressure to remain unbeaten
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports collected another victory to continue undefeated in the LEC. G2 remains at the top of the standings after defeating Team Vitality in week four of the LEC Spring Split. The match of the week started with a surprise in the draft as Martin “Wunder” Hansen locked in Jarvan IV in the top lane. Vitality focused its early efforts on the bottom lane and secured first blood four minutes …
A former MLB executive is the new Gen.G CEO
William Davis
League of Legends
Gen.G has announced Chris Park as the organization’s new CEO. Chris Park was a senior vice-president for Major League Baseball prior to his appointment as the CEO of Gen.G. Park joins the organization after four years in charge of products and marketing at the MLB. The move makes Park the latest executive to transition from the world of traditional sports to esports, a nascent industry in need of experienced talents …
China declares esports an official career path
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Esports has officially been accepted as a career path in China. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China added “esports operators” and “esports professionals” to its growing list of approved career paths. The ministry described an “esports professional” as someone who competes in tournaments, performs in events, and trains with other pro players. It also lists a Chinese term that translates to “account boosting” as one of …
The latest League patch is a love letter to ADCs
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
League of Legend’s 9.3 patch notes are a love letter to ADCs, delivered just in time for Valentine’s Day. ADCs have felt a little neglected in the current mea, and Riot has promised change. Riot is giving the ADCs in their life some crit item changes to help them cope with the burst damage carries now frequently run into. Infinity Edge was reworked with an added extra 25 percent chance …
Cloud9 star Sneaky reveals another revealing cosplay
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi’s gender-bending cosplay has the League of Legends community afire. The Cloud9 bot laner couldn’t wait until the summer to show off his latest Swimsuit Ahri cosplay on Twitter. The photos, which perfectly hid his bare bottom with a well-placed emoji, are among many available on Sneaky’s official Patreon. Many of Sneaky’s League of Legends-inspired cosplays are available as signed and customized polaroids through his Patreon, which currently …
Wrapping up changes for League of Legends ranked Season 9
Jared Wynne
League of Legends
League of Legends players are gearing up for the latest season of ranked play in the popular MOBA. As is the case every year, the new season comes with new content and big changes to the game. Season 9’s New Ranked System Riot has added two new ranks: Iron and Grandmaster. Iron is placed before Bronze, and Grandmaster is placed in between Master and Challenger. In addition, Division V has …
Liquid are the last unbeaten LCS team after win over Clutch
William Davis
League of Legends
Defending champion Team Liquid finished week two of the LCS Spring Split on a high note after defeating Clutch Gaming. Liquid found its fourth consecutive win of the early season versus Clutch Gaming, as the defending champions took down the Texas-based team after 36 minutes of play. The action started in the bot lane with a first blood just two minutes into the game in favor of Team Liquid. Clutch …
TSM find victory over Echo Fox after baron swing
William Davis
League of Legends
Team SoloMid found victory against Echo Fox after an action-packed game in the second week of the 2019 LCS Spring Split. TSM and Echo Fox took the stage early in week two looking to make a mark early in the first split of the new year. This exciting match started with a surprising Jayce pick in the bottom lane for Echo Fox. Colin “Solo” Earnest started the action in the …
TSM forms developmental team for young players
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Team SoloMid has announced a “League of Legends Jr.” team designed to provide a path for younger competitors looking to one day go pro. The team’s roster will consist of players who have demonstrated the “skill and drive” to play League of Legends on a professional level, but are currently too young to pursue their professional esports dream on a pro team. Historically, young players have largely been left to …
Doublelift protects his throne, Liquid dominate 100 Thieves
William Davis
League of Legends
Team Liquid dominated its first highly anticipated match against 100 Thieves and consolidated itself as the sole leader atop the LCS. The match between the defending champions at Liquid and a newly retooled 100 Thieves created high expectations in the community. It was the first time that Yilliang “Doublelift” Peng would face two-time world champion Bae “Bang” Jun-sik on the LCS stage. 100 Thieves surprised in the picks and bans …
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
League of Legends
League of Legends
League of Legends
