League of Legends
League of Legends
What is a Yordle? Explaining LoL’s cutest cryptids
Nicholas James
Yordles have long been a fixture of League of Legends’ lore, debuting with the game’s release. These short and often fuzzy, creatures are the second biggest race of playable characters, falling behind the ever-popular human. But, what are Yordles? Are they just cute fuzzy characters to sell skins to younger audiences, or is there something more mysterious beneath the surface? Yordles aren’t the creatures they appear to be, quite literally. …
League of Legends
Riot Games will give championship rings to Worlds 2021 winners
Nicholas James
Riot Games is taking a page out of traditional sport’s book and will be awarding championship rings to the winners of Worlds 2021. Riot took to Twitter to announce a new tradition at its annual World Championship. The victors of the grand finals will be presented with dazzling rings commemorating their victory, designed in collaboration between Riot Games, Mercedes-Benz, and GOOD ART HLYWD. The rings are crafted from 18-karat white …
League of Legends
New traits and mechanics in TFT: Gizmos and Gadgets intro
Nicholas James
Riot Games has pulled the curtain back on upcoming Teamfight Tactics set Gizmos and Gadgets. In an introductory video, Riot shows a bunch of the new traits and mechanics for the new set. From wild Hextech Augments that can turn your strategy on its head, to enormous units that count as two, there are lots of new mechanics to learn. In this latest video, helpful Hextech gear F.R.E.D walks players …
League of Legends
RNG vs EDward Gaming: 2021 Worlds betting analysis
William Davis
The second quarterfinal of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship will be between two Chinese giants with defending LPL champion EDward Gaming taking on Royal Never Give Up. Not only will this match decide which LPL team will advance further in the tournament, but it will also be a matchup with a lot of history from possibly the most competitive league in the world. It will be the defending …
League of Legends
How Fnatic failed at Worlds
Nicholas James
The League of Legends World Championship 2021 was a frustrating time for Fnatic, EU’s second seed. Fnatic’s main AD carry left the event and was forced to play with Louis “Bean” Schmitz instead. Despite a strong showing in the LEC’s summer playoffs, Fnatic’s implosion at Worlds had plenty of factors. The obvious change in Fnatic’s Worlds 2021 run was the departure of Elias “Upset” Lipp from the tournament due to …
League of Legends
T1 vs. Hanwha Life: 2021 Worlds betting analysis
William Davis
The first quarterfinal of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship is right around the corner and will be a match between two Korean rivals from the LCK. In the first best-of-five of the main event, T1 will clash with Hanwha Life for the first time since the LCK regional finals when T1 won a close 3-2 series. Even though that match happened less than two months ago, a lot …
League of Legends
LoL patch 11.21 brings the end of All Chat, Teemo buffs, more
Nicholas James
Riot Games has released the patch notes for League of Legends patch 11.21. The patch targets champions that are overperforming such as Miss Fortune and Graves, while bringing up champions like Viego, Teemo, and Jinx. Dragonmancer skins join the game alongside some mastery and item changes to get everything settled for the upcoming preseason. Riot is also beginning their temporary test of disabling all chat in order to combat toxicity. …
League of Legends
Who is EDward Gaming, contender to win Worlds 2021?
Nicholas James
EDward Gaming is the reigning LPL champion, with a roster of players who have long had chips on their shoulders. What players make up the roster of this Chinese juggernaut aiming for the Worlds 2021 title? And how did they get to this point? It’s worth going over the history of EDward Gaming’s players and the brand itself. EDward Gaming entered the LPL, China’s main competitive League of Legends league, …
Riot Games announces Arcane skins for Jayce and Vi
Nicholas James
League of Legends
It’s full steam ahead on the Arcane hype train, with Riot Games’ animated series based on League of Legends set to premiere on November 6, the same day as the 2021 World Championship final. In line with the Piltover & Zaun-focused series, Riot has announced skins for some of the characters to be depicted in the series. The League of Legends developer took to Twitter to announce Arcane Edition skins …
T1 bot lane dominates Worlds 2021 group stage, knockouts next?
William Davis
League of Legends
T1’s bot lane of Lee “Gumayusi” Min-hyeong and Ryu “Keria” Min-seok impressed at the 2021 World Championship group stage with high KDA’s and very few deaths. Over the course of the six group-stage games, the T1 bot lane managed to top the charts in both KDA and fewest deaths. The great performance puts support Keria at the second-highest KDA of all players going into the playoffs at 14, with bot …
Gen.G, MAD Lions survive first 4-way tie in Worlds history
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
After the final day of the 2021 World Championship group stage resulted in a four-way, 3-3 tie, an entire tiebreaker knockout was required to sort things out. The high-stakes situation between four evenly matched teams ultimately saw two advance to the playoffs and two booted from the event entirely. In the end, it was Gen.G and MAD Lions that were sent to the Worlds 2021 playoffs and Team Liquid and …
Who will win Worlds 2021 Playoffs? The Best Worlds Pick’ems
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The Worlds 2021 group stage is over. Now it’s time for the playoffs and the Pick’Ems that go with them. Week two of groups brought plenty of close games and even some unexpected results. With two LPL teams, four LCK teams, and the lonesome western teams of MAD Lions and Cloud9 making up the competitive field, the matches have been drawn and it’s time for fans to lock in their …
Worlds 2021 knockout group draw sees C9 vs Gen.G, DK vs MAD
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
The Worlds 2021 group stage is over, and now the knockout stage is about to begin. After a four-way tiebreaker decided the two teams to advance out of group D, the Worlds 2021 knockout stage draw began. This decided the four matchups for that will kick off the knockout stage, and seeded the bracket for the remainder of the tournament. The four matches include two intraregional tilts and a few …
Teemo can permanently blind targets with patch 11.21 buffs
William Davis
League of Legends
After Riot Games presented the upcoming Teemo buffs for League of Legends patch 11.21, it has been shown that the swift scout can now permanently blind targets if he has enough Ability Haste built up. The upcoming buff to Teemo has his Blinding Dart (Q) lowered the cooldown to seven seconds while increasing the blind duration to a point that it now blinds for three seconds at maximum level. This …
Bwipo addresses turmoil at Worlds 2021, thanks partner
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Fnatic’s journey at the 2021 World Championship was anything but smooth. The day before the event, Fnatic announced that AD carry Elias “Upset” Lipp would not be attending due to an urgent family matter. After being eliminated from the group stage, it’s been made clear that the collapse of the main roster deeply affected the Fnatic players. Fnatic top laner Gabriel “Bwipo” Rau took to Twitter after Fnatic’s elimination from …
TFT patch 11.21 previews Lucian, Mystic, Kayle buffs
Nicholas James
League of Legends
It’s the last patch before Riot Games switches up Teamfight Tactics sets, but it’s not pulling punches. The Teamfight Tactics developer previewed tweaks to Divine, Sentinels, and more in the patch preview. Patch 11.21 looks to uplift a few units that have been suffering and knock down some of the set’s more dominant champions. The changes will be short-lived, however, as the new TFT set, Gizmos and Gadgets, drops two …
How FunPlus Phoenix failed at Worlds
Nicholas James
League of Legends
FunPlus Phoenix was one of the frontrunners competing for the title at the 2021 World Championship. But the iconic organization dropped out dead last in the group behind two western teams. How do previous world champions, the second seed from the strongest region, bomb out with a 0-4 day? We’ll break down FPX’s most glaring weaknesses and evaluate some Fandex takeaways for the competitively-minded. Heading into the LPL Summer 2021 …
How to watch TFT PBE Clash: Gizmos and Gadgets
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Riot Games is hyping up the release of the new Teamfight Tactics set, Gizmos and Gadgets. As a part of this effort, it has announced the TFT PBE Clash, a pre-release event for content creators and competitive players alike. Riot is partnering with Wisdom media to bring this event to TFT fans. Gizmos and Gadgets, the upcoming set, is focused on the Chemtech and Hextech themes that Riot’s leaning into …
Cloud9 headed to Worlds 2021 playoffs, FPX and Rogue eliminated
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
Cloud9’s dramatic turnaround in the Worlds 2021 group stage will see the team advance to the knockout stage and send Rogue and FunPlus Phoenix packing. After opening the group stage with three successive defeats in what most thought was the toughest group at the tournament, North America’s third seed had a mountain to climb heading into their final day of matches. Against all odds, the team managed to do so. …
How to unlock Veigar in League of Legends: Wild Rift
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Veigar, The Tiny Master of Evil, is cackling his way into League of Legends: Wild Rift soon and will be available as an unlockable champion. In anticipation of the champion’s release, it’s worth offering fans a quick rundown of how Veigar works, what can be learned from him in League of Legends, and how to unlock him. With this guide, it won’t be hard to one-shot opponents on the rift. …
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.
