League of Legends
League of Legends
Why did Elon Musk tweet Arcane Jinx’s splash art?
Nicholas James
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk shook up Twitter earlier today by tweeting the splash art for the League of Legends character Jinx’s Arcane skin, tied in with the hit animated series. Why did one of the richest people on the face of the earth post Arcane’s protagonist? Is this setting up another social media meltdown from Musk prompted from his refusal to credit the creator of fan artwork for Nier: Automata? …
League of Legends
Who are Keaiduo, Chawy, & Shenyi? TSM’s latest LCS additions
Nicholas James
TSM announced its full LCS roster and support staff today, and many fans are seeing some new names for the first time. Zhu “Keaiduo” Xiong is an LDL mid laner playing his first major split in competitive play, while Wong “Chawy” Xing-Lei is a PCS coach making his way to North America. Keaiduo is a recent addition to League of Legends professional play, making his debut in the LDL 2021 …
League of Legends
Riot Games Sessions second volume teased for The Game Awards
Nicholas James
Fans of Riot Games’ music department are getting even more fuel following Arcane and Worlds. New creator-safe music is being teased for The Game Awards, which takes place on December 9. Riot Games hasn’t hinted at much else getting spotlight time at The Game Awards. Riot Forge has already announced its upcoming titles, Project L has had an update, Arcane is done, and Valorant’s biggest tournament is still ongoing. It …
League of Legends
Massive Augment changes in patch 11.24 overhaul Gadgets and Gizmos
Nicholas James
The new Teamfight Tactics patch has arrived and there are a ton of changes for players to get excited about. From Augments going up and down tiers to Innovator finally getting a nerf, Riot Games is shaking up the meta with the latest balance update. Riot Games is touching some traits but the biggest changes are a ton of new changes to come to Teamfight Tactics’ latest core mechanic of …
League of Legends
This is the G2 Esports roster going into the 2022 LEC season
William Davis
The most successful European organization throughout the last few years of League of Legends, G2 Esports, will be heading into the 2022 LEC season with a very different roster. After failing to qualify for the World Championship for the first time in the organization’s history, G2 entered the offseason with a lot of things to improve upon. The 2021 season was an overall failure for the star-packed roster, resulting in …
League of Legends
New Elderwood Skins for Gnar and Rek’Sai
Nicholas James
More Elderwood skins are hitting League of Legends’ PBE today, with the haunted forest motif bringing new looks for Gnar and Rek’Sai. The Elderwood skin line, which shares a universe with the Coven, General Eclipse, Death Blossom, and Old God skins, has long been a fan favorite. These latest additions double down on the dark magical theme to give two of League’s more iconic monster champions a brand new aesthetic. …
League of Legends
Firelight Ekko skin brings Arcane’s boy savior to life
Nicholas James
Riot has been leaning hard into Arcane, the new animated series set in League of Legends’ world of Runeterra. That lean continues now with a new skin for Ekko. Four skins were previously released for free as a part of the RiotX Arcane event that took place over the course of November. Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn, and Jayce all received free visual cosmetics that players could unlock by winning a single …
League of Legends
Who is Mikyx playing for in 2022?
Nicholas James
Mihael “Mikyx” Mehle, multiple-time LEC champion and Mid-Season Invitational winner, has departed G2 Esports after multiple years on the roster. But where’s he going next? The change was announced early into G2 Esports’ offseason and where the support player would land was a subject of speculation by fans and personalities alike. In the end, it appears that 2021’s brutal offseason has claimed yet another top-tier player. The roster was supposed …
Invictus Gaming is blowing up its LPL roster before 2022 season
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming appears to be cleaning house on its LPL roster, with players departing left, right, and center. Kang “TheShy” Seung-lok was the first to announce his free agency in November following the end of Worlds 2022. Song “Rookie” Eui-jin announced his departure from Invictus Gaming a few days ago on Chinese social media platform Weibo. Zhang “Wink” Rui, and Gao “Ming” Zhen-Ning seem to be leaving, and social media …
Ex-SKT T1 champion Bang announces retirement from LoL esports
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Bae “Bang” Jun-sik, one of the most decorated players in League of Legends esports, has announced his retirement. With two World Championships, two Mid Season Invitational titles, and four LCK playoff wins, few players will ever be able to compare to Bang. The veteran marksman player was a crucial part of T1’s resurgence on the international stage and spent time in North America in 2020 before returning to Korea in …
New Sejuani story hints at Udyr rework and new lore
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot continues to double down on using their narrative divisions to preemptively build out the constantly-evolving world of League of Legends. The latest story released, “Dead of Winter” by writer Graham McNeill, gives hints at upcoming changes to the storytelling of Runeterra’s world and iconic champions. The story follows Sejuani and Olaf through a harrowing journey across the Freljord, and even hints at possible lore for the impending Udyr rework. …
This is the complete roster for T1 in the 2022 LCK season
William Davis
League of Legends
After a great run at the 2021 World Championship, T1 will enter the 2022 LCK season with a lot of familiar names including a few changes. The 2021 season ended with an unfortunate top four at Worlds for T1, but the legendary organization will look to continue the momentum and potentially make it all the way to a trophy in 2022. The new roster was recently presented and it will, …
League of Legends event rewards are changing, here’s how
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games has announced sweeping changes to how event points are calculated for League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics players during in-game events. Previously, players were given set rewards for the number of games they played while events were active. With the new update, players will instead be able to collect rewards based on the amount of time they spend playing League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, rather than a …
LoL: Wild Rift wins Apple’s iPhone Game of the Year award
Nicholas James
League of Legends
League of Legends: Wild Rift, the mobile adaptation of Riot Games’ wildly successful MOBA League of Legends, is already winning acclaim from top-level outlets. Apple is the latest tech titan to give Wild Rift its roses by acknowledging it as the best iPhone game available through the Apple App Store. Wild Rift has been a wildly successful adaptation of Riot Games’ central IP into the realm of mobile gaming. There …
Pantheon revealed in Legends of Runeterra
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The Magic Misadventures expansion for Legends is taking players all over Runeterra to add a variety of cards for different regions to the game. Targon is the latest region to be blessed with a League of Champions making their debut in card form, with Pantheon being the latest champion to join the game. Pantheon is a power midrange threat that turns into an unstoppable wrecking ball as you power up …
Here is DWG KIA’s full roster for the 2022 LCK season
William Davis
League of Legends
For the first time since the end of 2020, DWG KIA has made roster changes to its League of Legends LCK roster. After failing to win both the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational and 2021 World Championship despite reaching both finals, DWG KIA has made three big roster changes moving into the next season. These roster changes include new young talent that will aim to keep DWG KIA the best team in …
Prime Gaming Wild Rift rewards for December revealed
Nicholas James
League of Legends
There are still rewards aplenty available across Riot Games’ titles through Prime Gaming even after the end of the RiotX Arcane event. Prime Gaming rewards will be available on Wild Rift all the way to November of next year, and likely beyond then. December’s rewards for Wild Rift aren’t too impressive, but there are still RiotX Arcane rewards to claim through Prime Gaming as well. Unlike the December prizes for …
All the ranked rewards changes coming to Wild Rift
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games has announced a ton of changes coming to Wild Rift in Patch 2.6. Alongside a deluge of skins, URF, new champions, and more, the way ranked and rewards for ranked play function is changing. Players will be able to claim skins and other rewards as a part of their ranked play. Glorious Skins are being made a bit more difficult for higher-ranked players to claim, but those who …
Kennen revealed in Legends of Runeterra
Nicholas James
League of Legends
More and more champions are getting added to Legends of Runeterra, pulled from League of Legends’ roster and made into the headlining Champion cards that decks revolve around. Kennen, the latest Yordle to get added to Legends of Runeterra, has been recently revealed as a part of spoilers for the upcoming Bandlewood expansion. The new Magic Misadventures expansion lets fans harness the power of the Spirit Realm and the supercharged …
Mithy joins 100 Thieves as coach for the 2022 LCS season
William Davis
League of Legends
100 Thieves will be powering up its coaching staff for the 2022 LCS season, as the team recently announced former professional support player Alfonso “Mithy” Rodríguez as a new addition to the coaching staff. Mithy will be joining the organization after coaching Cloud9 in 2021. He started the season as a strategic coach for the organization but was promoted to be the team’s head coach for the summer split. Mithy …
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.
