League of Legends
League of Legends
Fnatic ex-ADC Upset joins Vitality after disastrous Winter
Nicholas James
Elias “Upset” Lipp, the once-AD carry for Fnatic, has joined Team Vitality after a disappointing end to LEC Winter 2023 for both organizations. Upset was previously the AD carry for Fnatic’s LEC roster from 2020 to 2022 before being put on its inactive roster and replaced by Martin “Rekkles” Larsson in 2023. Since then, his absence from the LEC has been a subject of much discussion. The veteran marksman player’s …
League of Legends
New LoL champions Milio and Naafiri teased in Nidalee VO
Nicholas James
Details about the next new champions, Milio and Naafiri, have been teased by new voice lines for Nidalee, recently added to League of Legends. The next two champions for League of Legends have both had their names, loose thematic, and some details released ahead of their proper reveals. One is an Ixtali support named Milio, the other is a Darkin assassin who awakens in Shurima named Naafiri. We already know …
League of Legends
Yuumi rework abilities explained and release date revealed
Nicholas James
The Yuumi rework has hit the Public Beta Environment, so here’s everything that has changed and what you should expect. Yuumi is one of the most-hated champions in all of League of Legends in her current form. With the ability to hop onto an ally and become practically untouchable while she heals, peels, and speeds up her host, it’s hard not to hate losing to her. At the same time, …
League of Legends
Why MtG players should play Legends of Runeterra
Nicholas James
Legends of Runeterra is Riot Games’ free-to-play online card game set in the world of League of Legends. Here’s why Magic: The Gathering players should try it out. Magic: The Gathering is the most successful collectible card game in the world, with tens of millions of players worldwide. Despite its enormous worldwide success, there are only two proper analogs for online MtG play, and both have their problems. From Magic …
League of Legends
What’s happening to League of Legends lore?
Nicholas James
League of Legends has always had a lore problem, but it seems like the MOBA is encountering entirely new problems when it comes to storytelling. MOBA games like League of Legends have a distinct lack of opportunities to tell stories about their characters and worlds during the game. Given that almost every match happens on the same map, with a wide variety of champions, the state of the world has …
League of Legends
How Riot made the iconic Worlds 2022 Opening Ceremonies
Nicholas James
The Worlds 2022 Opening Ceremonies were the biggest performance of the League of Legends year, here’s how Riot Games pulled them off. The World Championships are the biggest event of the year, and it’s always given the scale to match its status. In 2022, massive artists Jackson Wang and Lil Nas X were brought on to step up the production. In a recent video, the League of Legends developer took …
League of Legends
Riot reveals details for the new LoL deathmatch mode
Nicholas James
League of Legends is getting a brand new way to play the game in 2023, and here’s what we know about the new LoL deathmatch mode. Riot Games announced at the start of the year that it was intending to bring a new game mode to League of Legends. On February 21, 2023, the company clarified that this would be a brand-new 2v2v2v2 deathmatch-like mode. It also announced a new …
League of Legends
How to get better at warding in League of Legends
Nicholas James
Warding is one of the most important skills in League of Legends, here’s how to get better at warding. Information is king in League of Legends, and wards are one of the best ways to gather that information. Unlike wave management, looking to trade, and similar mechanics, its not as simple to learn. Warding is a situational skill that relies on a player’s macro knowledge of the game and their …
Markoon reflects on last LEC week, says SK played “pretty bad”
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
We spoke with SK Gaming’s Mark “Markoon” van Woensel following his side’s swift 2-0 win over Team Heretics in their LEC Winter matchup. The Dutch jungler discussed the victory and looked ahead to SK’s next series against Team Vitality with a chance to make it to the playoffs. In this interview, Markoon gave his thoughts on his opposing junglers Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski and Zhou “Bo” Yang-Bo, including how he felt …
Three new Riot Forge Games games coming in 2023
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Three new League of Legends games have been announced, with several Riot Forge games being confirmed to be released this year. Riot Forge is Riot Games’ effort to become a publisher rather than a developer for titles set within League of Legends’ world of Runeterra. Recently, Riot Games has announced the year ahead for Riot Forge and the alternate video games set in its most popular world. The three titles …
Riot Games 2023 plans include Teemo, Lee Sin updates
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, has announced its plans for 2023, including a brand-new game mode and even plans for the lore. 2023 has been a mixed year for Riot Games so far. While League of Legends seems bigger than ever, Season 13 was off to a rocky start after significant fan backlash over the decision made by Riot Games. From LCS logistics to the season start …
League of Legends Amazon Prime February rewards
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The League of Legends Amazon Prime Gaming rewards for February are here, here’s how you can receive the rewards as well as what to expect. Amazon Prime and Riot Games have several ongoing collaborations in which subscribing to Amazon’s premium subscription service gives the player several free rewards in the game every month. Some fans were worried that Prime Gaming rewards were going away in League of Legends after January’s …
All we know about Riot Forge’s upcoming League of Legends titles in 2023
Fariha Bhatti
League of Legends
Fans of the League of Legends should buckle up for an exciting year as Riot Forge has lifted the curtain on three unreleased LoL-themed titles for 2023. While Riot Games is busy delivering crucial updates to existing, established titles, Forge focuses on doubling down on the lore by creating character-specific titles with the help of developers around the world. The successful game Hextech Mayhem released in 2021, is a great …
How to buy MSI 2023 tickets in London, England
Nicholas James
League of Legends
League of Legends’ Mid-Season Invitational is on its way to a nation that has never before hosted an international competition, MSI 2023 is coming to London. If you want to experience the London Underground at rush hour, international LoL competition, and curry that might be spicier than the MSI games, it’s the perfect location. The location was announced earlier this year to much celebration from UK League of Legends fans. …
Will Arcane Season 2 come out in 2023?
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Arcane, the animated adaptation of League of Legends, was a smash hit and one of the greatest video game shows of all time, will Arcane Season 2 come out in 2023? Arcane is the official animated League of Legends adaptation, following sisters Vi and Powder through the twin cities of Piltover and Zaun. It arrived on Netflix in 2021 to rave reviews from enfranchised League of Legends fans and newcomers …
The secret champions that never made it into LoL
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Many League of Legends fans will know that there were 40 champions available in the game when League of Legends first released fully, but what about the secret champions that never made it that far? What some fans might not know is that there’s proof of several champions that Riot Games originally intended to make but never followed through on. Recently, fans on social media helped unearth a picture that …
LS tells fans Danny is doing well on hiatus from LCS
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Nick “LS” DeCesare has said that professional player Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki is doing well on his hiatus from professional play. Danny left Evil Geniuses late into the Summer Split of 2022 due to excessive mental stress and the pressures of public competition. This was one of the first recent examples of a professional player purposefully stepping away from the scene as a result of the external pressures of pro play. …
Was this Fnatic’s worst split ever?
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Fnatic is one of the founding organizations in Europe, the champions of the first ever League of Legends World Championship, but is 2023 Fnatic’s worst year ever? Fnatic has, at previous points, been a name synonymous with repeat championships and excellence in Europe’s LEC. The organization has won multiple domestic championships and competed internationally at Worlds and MSI. While the organization has had moments of glory and even victories in …
This Rell and Taric armor glitch broke League of Legends
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Two supports isn’t what you expect when unkillable juggernauts are mentioned, but this Rell and Taric glitch makes them nearly invincible. Rell and Taric are two relatively low-damage supports, each focusing on providing value to their team in other ways. So combining the two together to try and tower dive enemies carries isn’t something that should work, but that’s exactly what’s been happening in some ranked games. There’s an unintended …
Which champions are getting reworks in 2023?
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games has a time-honored tradition of revamping characters in League of Legends with champion reworks, but which champions are getting reworks in 2022? What constitutes a champion rework has changed over time, and there are two different types of reworks that Riot Games does in present times. From fan-voted reworks to small-scale new designs for abilities, updating outdated champions is a core part of keeping League of Legends’ gameplay …
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.
