League of Legends
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 …
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming is blowing up its LPL roster before 2022 season
Nicholas James
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 …
League of Legends
League of Legends event rewards are changing, here’s how
Nicholas James
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 …
League of Legends
LoL: Wild Rift wins Apple’s iPhone Game of the Year award
Nicholas James
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 …
League of Legends
Pantheon revealed in Legends of Runeterra
Nicholas James
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 …
League of Legends
Here is DWG KIA’s full roster for the 2022 LCK season
William Davis
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 …
How to get League of Legends Prime Gaming rewards for December
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Prime Gaming’s December offerings for League of Legends players have arrived, and there are more rewards for those who already own Amazon Prime accounts. Along with this, RiotX Arcane’s rewards are still available until the end of the month for League of Legends players to claim. This month’s Prime Gaming rewards include Riot Points, a free skin, and more enticing offers for those taking to Summoner’s Rift. https://twitter.com/LeagueOfLegends/status/1465734876007591938?s=20 The Amazon …
Caedrel says Chemtech Drake could ruin pro League of Legends
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The Chemtech Drake, one of the two new elemental dragon subtypes added to League of Legends as a part of patch 11.23, has already become a hot topic amongst League of Legends fans. The effect the Chemtech Drake has on Summoner’s Rift with zones of camouflaging smog in each team’s jungle has many fans upset at how unfun it is to play into, especially while behind. Marc “Caedrel” Lamont, a …
Is Corina Veraza the next support in League of Legends?
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot has been relatively mysterious when it comes to champions getting added to League of Legends at the end of this year and headed into 2022. Fans have received clues about the next three champions to be added to League of Legends’ lengthy roster. The first will be a marksman wielding some type of electric cannon, the second a support with a darker tone, and the third being a jungler …
Arcane’s Silco coming to TFT set 6.5, but is he coming to LoL?
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
Silco is officially becoming a part of the League of Legends game universe with Teamfight Tactics: Gizmos and Gadgets’ mid-set update, but how big will his role be, and could he be coming to LoL next? On League of Legends’ Korean website, Riot Games teased TFT set 6.5 and showed the model for Silco in the game. The website suggested that this version of Silco is an all-new model, not …
Jiizuke announces he will be teamless in 2022, and this is why
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The 2021 end-of-year offseason has been particularly brutal for many top League of Legends talents across the western professional leagues. Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro appears to be the latest casualty of an offseason that many are calling a response to inflating salaries and buyouts. Jiizuke announced he would not be playing professionally in the coming spring split, joining a growing list of promising veteran talent that hasn’t found a home …
Why is Bwipo returning to top lane for Team Liquid in 2022?
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau has been a part of likely the most exciting roster move in North American League of Legends this year, joining Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Steven “Hans Sama” Liv in filling out Team Liquid’s super team. Bwipo made his debut in pro play as a top laner, but swapped roles in 2021 to jungle and rapidly became one of the LEC’s top talents in his role. Why has …
Ivern is getting buffed while LoL players tout Camille nerfs
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games is known to not tinker overly much with the internal balance of League of Legends during any given preseason, but Riot is still fine softening Camille’s iron grip on the top lane. Large changes to the macro game lead to sudden changes elsewhere, and it can be worth waiting for the metagame to stabilize before making large changes in response. Patch 11.24 is indicative of this approach with …
Wild Rift Patch 2.6 adds Kayle, Morgana, URF, and more
Nicholas James
League of Legends
League of Legends: Wild Rift Patch 2.6 is coming soon, and there’s a deluge of new champions and changes for fans to take in. Two new champions are getting added, with sisters Kayle and Morgana taking to the rift alongside the reworked Doctor Mundo. New items join the shop, more bans are being added to ranked play, and new rewards are being offered up. Patch 2.6 looks to be bringing …
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.
