League of Legends
League of Legends
All damage is getting nerfed in League of Legends, here’s why
Nicholas James
There’s a massive damage nerf coming to League of Legends, and it includes single source of damage in the game. Developer Riot Games mentioned looking at holistic nerfs to damage in the game back in November 2021, and it looks like those changes are finally imminent. A Riot game designer has said that new changes are incoming that will look to extend combat time in League of Legends and lessen …
League of Legends
New High Noon skins announced for these LoL champions
Nicholas James
New High Noon skins have been announced for League of Legends, bringing the wild west aesthetic to even more LoL champions. The gothic High Noon skin line is returning, bringing the dark, firey aesthetic of this alternate universe to a new range of playable characters. The new High Noon skins include a Legendary skin for Leona and a Prestige Edition skin for Talon. Here are all the new High Noon …
League of Legends
Keria extends his T1 contract for another year
William Davis
T1 is set when it comes to its League of Legends support position in the upcoming year thanks to an extended contract with support Ryu “Keria” Min-seok. The recently crowned LCK MVP has been a vital piece in T1’s flawless run during the spring split. Together with the rest of T1, Keria broke one record after the other by going undefeated in the regular split followed by winning the trophy. …
League of Legends
The EDG Worlds 2021 skins are now available on the PBE
William Davis
The wait for the 2021 World Championship skins is finally over. The five skins celebrating EDward Gaming’s win have officially hit the Public Beta Environment (PBE). Like the previous winners of the Summoner’s Cup, EDG has gotten its own skin line in League of Legends. Each player has been able to choose the champion that receives their own skin, which in this round includes Graves, Viego, Zoe, Aphelios, and Yuumi. …
League of Legends
How to play Samira and dominate the bot lane in LoL
Nicholas James
Samira is a unique, short-range marksman who excels at high-octane carry moments. Here’s how to play Samira in League of Legends and steamroll the competition. From being able to extend the duration of crowd control to the ability to make entire ultimates disappear, Samira is one of League of Legends’ most unique champions. She’s a fast, mobile skirmisher who is rewarded for performing combos before diving head-first into the enemy …
League of Legends
Who counters Wukong? The best counters to LoL’s monkey menace
Nicholas James
Wukong recently received a small rework that has led to him terrorizing solo queue games. If you’ve been left scratching your head and looking for a solution, here’s who counters Wukong in both the jungle and top lane. Wukong is a tricky bruiser, able to outmaneuver and outwit his opponents with quick trades and a powerful ultimate. As a result of a small rework that allows him to cross walls …
League of Legends
What rank is required for the Riot Games balance team?
Nicholas James
Many fans view the Riot Games balance team as a mysterious force, but the League of Legends developer pulled back the curtain on exactly what it means to balance the popular MOBA. The Gameplay Analysis Team is the group that tests the various changes brought to League of Legends ahead of those changes being pushed to the Public Beta Environment. For everything from new items to new game mechanics, the …
League of Legends
What are the best runes for Senna as an ADC and support?
Nicholas James
Senna is a unique marksman, able to play the role of a traditional AD carry from both bot lane and support with the right rune setup. Senna is a mix of traditional marksman and enchanter support. She gains souls from nearby minions dying and damaging enemy champions, building crit chance, attack damage, and attack range as she gains more souls. This leads to the unique dynamic of Senna choosing not …
MSI 2022 groups drawn, where are T1 and G2 Esports starting?
William Davis
League of Legends
With less than three weeks until the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational kicks off, the groups have officially been drawn. Following the LCS lower-bracket final yesterday, it was decided what the MSI 2022 groups will look like. The teams will be distributed across three groups to start off the action in Busan, South Korea. Just like last year, there will be an uneven number of teams at the event with 11 participants …
Why is Bard disabled in LoL? Game-crashing bug explained
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games has Bard disabled in League of Legends due to a bug that can crash all 10 players’ games and make the match end. Riot Games had no choice but to have cosmic wanderer Bard disabled due to a game-breaking bug that caused the entire match to end, disappearing into the void of the internet. The issue cropped up with Bard’s terrain traversal, Magical Journey, which creates a shortcut …
Here’s what the EDward Gaming Worlds 2021 skins look like
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The EDG Worlds skins celebrating the victors of 2021’s League of Legends World Championship appear to have been leaked. EDward Gaming was the upset champion of last year’s World Championship after a stunning showing against defending champions Damwon KIA. Splash art has begun circulating among Chinese LoL esports personalities what appears to be most of the splash art for the team. The splash art matches champions chosen by the players. …
Coach kkOma of SKT fame resigns from national team
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Damwon KIA head coach Kim “kkOma” Jeong-gyun has resigned as the head coach of the Korean national League of Legends team ahead of the upcoming Asian Games. The Asian Games are an international sports competition based in Asia that has been expanded to include esports. The attending Korean team is assembled from South Korean nationals and competes against other Asian nations in both traditional sports and esports. This year’s Asian …
Team Liquid vs Evil Geniuses: 2022 LCS spring playoffs betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2022 LCS Spring Split finals weekend is right around the corner, starting with the lower-bracket final between Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses. The two teams will be fighting for the last spot in the grand final, where 100 Thieves is already waiting. This matchup between Liquid vs EG will be a rematch from the first round of the upper bracket, where the two teams played out an extremely close …
Riot Games announces the LPL will play remotely at MSI 2022
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games has announced that the Chinese representative from the LPL will play remotely at the Mid-Season Invitational. Due to ongoing travel restrictions in China, the representative from League of Legends esports’ largest region won’t be in South Korea for the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational. Instead, the Chinese players will be playing from inside China, the first occurrence of a remote attendance to the main stage of an MSI in the …
Kennen W bug continues to affect games after weeks live in LoL
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s impossible to avoid bugs in a big game like League of Legends, but some bugs manage to stay active longer than others, much to the frustration of players and fans. A bug affecting Kennen is the latest to come under scrutiny. Since patch 12.6 hit the live servers back on March 30, a bug with Kennen’s Electrical Surge (W) has been plaguing the game. The bug has seemingly been recognized …
Here’s what the new Skarner champion rework might look like
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games shook up the League of Legends fandom with massive reveals in its Champion Roadmap for April 2022, including revealing early concept work on the new Skarner champion rework. Skarner won the fan-decided poll on the next champion to receive a full Visual Gameplay Update, and Riot has begun to make public early explorations into the crystal scorpion’s new identity. These early glimpses include a brand new take on …
Aurelion Sol is getting a rework with new abilities in LoL
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games has announced that Aurelion Sol will be getting a full kit rework, granting him brand new abilities without changing his aesthetic. The Champion Roadmap for April 2022 plotted out Riot’s plans for the League of Legends character pool. Summoner’s Rift’s resident god-like star dragon will be getting a new set of abilities in the near future with Riot announcing development of an Aurelion Sol rework. Riot announced that …
Our first look at possible Void Empress champion Bel’Veth leak
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The new mysterious Void jungler coming to League of Legends seems to have been leaked ahead of her official announcement, with footage of a champion named Bel’Veth appearing online. The new Void jungler has been revealed to be the Empress of the Void in a recent Champion Roadmap. Now, new video showing a two-form champion that matches snippets of splash art and descriptions of her abilities seems to have leaked …
Riot to buff Mordekaiser and Jhin on the MSI 2022 patch
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot will be launching some big buffs in the upcoming patch 12.8, the official patch for the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational. Fans discovered some impactful changes in the latest patch preview, where Riot gave some insight into the updates that will be available for testing on the Public Beta Environment (PBE) in the upcoming days. In an attempt to potentially shake up the meta for the first international event of the …
New Shurima tank and Bilgewater bot lane LoL champions teased
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The Champion Roadmap for April 2022 has dropped some bombs on League of Legends fans, including teasing a new Shurima tank as well as a Bilgewater bot laner. Two mysterious champions were teased as a part of the new Champion Roadmap from Riot Games, a regular developer blog that updates fans on the studio’s plans for the game in the coming months. This roadmap included details on two mysterious new …
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.
