League of Legends
League of Legends
Riot Games changes Champions Queue following complaints
Nicholas James
Riot Games has officially announced upcoming changes to its elite-level matchmaking service, Champions Queue, ahead of the World Championships. These changes come on the heels of complaints from community members and professional players about aspects of the Champions Queue experience headed into the World Championship. Riot Whoopley, Riot Games’ Academy Director, announced expanded access and new requirements in a now-deleted Reddit post. In a Reddit post now deleted by the …
League of Legends
Spain’s Iberian Cup announced with a huge format twist
Tokoni Uti
The annual League of Legends Iberian Cup has been announced for 2022 with significant changes to the format. The Iberian Cup is a ProAm tournament meant to give amateur teams a chance to face Spain’s best squads in a for-fun competition. The cup will feature all 20 teams from the 1st and 2nd SuperLiga divisions as well as an additional twelve from amateur circuits and an open qualifier. The tournament …
League of Legends
League of Legends Worlds 2022 Play-ins see viewership drop
William Davis
Worlds 2022 Play-ins viewership has decreased in comparison to 2021, according to a report by Esports Charts. Twelve teams traveled to Mexico to participate in Worlds Play-ins, and after six days of competition, only four advanced to Worlds 2022 Main Event. For the first time, Play-ins had five teams from major regions, making this stage of the tournament more competitive than ever before. But not even the presence of current Mid-Season …
League of Legends
Here’s how to get drops from LoL Worlds 2022
William Davis
League of Legends and luxury brand Tiffany & Co. have partnered up to Worlds 2022 drops, and here’s how to get them. The teams on stage aren’t the only ones winning prizes at Worlds 2022. This year, the reward system is bigger and better, allowing fans at home to get exclusive items just by watching the event. Tiffany & Co. is the most recent Riot Games partner and the company …
League of Legends
G2 Esports suspends CEO Ocelote after video with Andrew Tate
Fariha Bhatti
G2 Esports has suspended CEO Carlos “Ocelote” Rodríguez Santiago following his celebratory tweet that showed him partying with former kickboxer and controversial figure Andrew Tate. Andrew Tate has been at the center of many controversies in past months. Tate became a prominent figure after he was thrown off reality show Big Brother due to a video of him beating a woman and slapping her with a belt. He found new …
League of Legends
Date, start times for each stage of LoL Worlds 2022 revealed
Tokoni Uti
Developer Riot Games has announced the schedule for the upcoming 2022 World Championship, this year the start times for Worlds 2022 are tailored to local viewers rather than international fans. The tournament begins, as usual, with the Play-In stage. The round robin runs from September 29 to October 2 and each day will start at 3 p.m. CDT or 1 p.m. PDT. This will be a late 10 p.m. CEST …
League of Legends
The best LoL Champions Queue streamers to watch for Worlds 2022
William Davis
Champions Queue is back and streamers have plenty of reason to showcase their gameplay before the start of Worlds 2022. Champions Queue is meant to be a pros-only environment where the very best League of Legends players from all over the world battle it out. It succeeds as a Worlds training ground, but it also produces some of the highest-level gameplay of the year. If you’re looking for LoL streamers …
League of Legends
Danny steps away from Evil Geniuses roster during LCS playoffs
Tokoni Uti
Evil Geniuses AD carry Kyle “Danny” Sakamaki has stepped down from the team’s starting roster, just days ahead of a massive series against 100 Thieves in the 2022 LCS Summer Playoffs. The news was broken by EG CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson in an announcement on Twitter, confirming that the player “will not be competing at this weekend’s LCS Summer Split Finals in Chicago.” She went on to credit Danny’s “courage …
TSM cuts Spica after failing to clinch Worlds 2022 berth
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
TSM has released jungler Mingyi “Spica” Lu, shortly after wiping out in the 2022 LCS Summer Playoffs, bringing a strange and sudden end to his time with the organization. Spica himself announced the termination of his contract on Twitter, making him an early free agent who will now be able to negotiate with teams ahead of November’s free agency period. The release of a player before the free agency period …
G2 Esports signs all-female League of Legends team, G2 Hel
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
G2 Esports has just acquired an all-female League of Legends roster to expand its footprint in the scene. G2 Esports recently signed G2 Gozen, an all-female Valorant roster. The esports organization decided its next all-female team would be in League of Legends. On September 1, G2 announced that it had signed Burger Flippers, one of the top women’s LoL teams in Europe. G2 Hel was formerly known as Burger Flippers. …
Why is Astralis’ JeongHoon Rookie of 2022 LEC Summer Split?
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
22-year-old Astralis support Lee “JeongHoon” Jeong-hoon has been voted as the best rookie of the 2022 LEC Summer Split. The player only competed after the mid-season break when Astralis made sweeping roster changes after a rough start to the split. He had never played in a tier-one league before the move and had previously only appeared for teams in Korea’s LCK Challengers League. His arrival, along with the additionals of …
EU Masters 2022 Play-Ins groups drawn, who got it worst?
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
With the groups drawn, the path to the main stage has been laid out for the 16 ERL teams in the 2022 European Masters play-in stage. The play-ins group draw divided 16 teams into four groups with each group going through a best-of-one double round-robin. The top two from each group then head into the knockout stage where the top seed of each group will be matched against a second …
What’s known about K’Sante including his release date, LoL role
Fariha Bhatti
League of Legends
Riot Games has unveiled the 162nd League of Legends champion, K’Sante, who hails from the desert region of Shurima. League of Legends has a huge roster of champions belonging to specific classes. 2022 saw five new characters added to the world of Runeterra. With the addition of Bel’Veth and Nillah, the carry class got tons of love. The upcoming character teased in the latest episode of LoL Pls will populate …
LoL Worlds trophy to be redesigned by Tiffany & Co.
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
The League of Legends World Championship trophy, most recently hoisted by EDward Gaming, will undergo a redesign led by luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. The Summoner’s Cup is the ultimate trophy in League of Legends esports. Created by Thomas Lyte, the company claims that its production took over 300 hours with a team of eight people. It’s an icon of the game’s history, but it’s getting a makeover after the …
These classic fighting mechanics are confirmed for Project L
William Davis
League of Legends
Project L will put a brand new spin on many of the fighting game genre’s most beloved mechanics. But some traditional mechanics will also be making a return in the new title from Riot Games. Executive producer Tom Cannon and technical lead Tony Cannon have already spoiled Project L fans with early previews, and fans are eager to glean as much info from them as possible. Based on the handful …
Which League of Legends champions could be added to Project L?
Fariha Bhatti
League of Legends
Not all League of Legend champions are equally viable for a fighting game, but many could make great additions to Project L. League of Legends has over 150 Champions that are all useful in specific roles and situations. Some characters work best as a support while others can take over the game with good backup. Project L follows the same beat, emphasizing two-on-two tag combat in Riot’s first fighting game …
T1 CEO apologizes for inappropriate comments about Oner
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
T1 CEO Joe Marsh has taken a salary cut to prove he’s sorry for making inappropriate comments about Mun “Oner” Hyeon-jun. Marsh apologized to League of Legends fans earlier this week, announcing that he’d also be taking a six-month salary cut. A translation of his lengthy TwitLonger reads that Marsh has asked the community to forgive him for his “wrongdoings.” On T1’s Discord server, Marsh and some T1 employees disclosed …
Team Liquid introduces Pro Lab to Alienware Training Facility
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Team Liquid has revealed its new Alienware Training Facility today, showcasing new tech and creative spaces. Team Liquid has been working on restructuring and redesigning its Alienware Training Facility for a few years and revealed the new look on August 16. The facility was split up into two areas, one side for esports and the other an open office. On the esports side, Team Liquid built two large scrimming spaces …
Has Riot Games removed your Valorant and LoL account?
Fariha Bhatti
League of Legends
Can’t log in to your long-forgotten League of Legends or Valorant account? Riot Games likely removed your account in a mass delete wave. Riot Games has numerous game titles, but League of Legends and Valorant are the most popular ones. Due to their peaking fame, the two games have many bad actors who create new accounts to tinker with ranks. Few hackers utilize their main accounts to employ third-party software, …
All of the biggest changes coming in the 2023 LoL Preseason
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
There’s still plenty of 2022 left to go, but League of Legends’ 2023 Preseason is quickly approaching. Following the LoL World Championship each year, major gameplay changes are introduced to League of Legends. These can include flashy changes like adding new dragons and overhauling the map, to smaller changes to how stats work and abilities interact. The next preseason will have a mix of both, with a number of champion …
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.
