League of Legends
League of Legends
Who is Alphari? Team Liquid’s top lane titan with no titles
Nicholas James
Barney “Alphari” Morris has been hailed as one of the greatest western top lane players to load into a League of Legends match. Origen’s lone bright point for many splits, the hyped import came to North America with staggering salary rumors. Yet, between his time spent in the LEC and LCS, Alphari still doesn’t have a domestic or international title to his name. What are Alphari’s origins, and what can …
League of Legends
FunPlus Phoenix vs. DWG KIA: Worlds 2021 betting analysis
William Davis
The 2021 League of Legends World Championship main event will kick off with a bang when two former world champions clash. It will be a match between defending world champion DWG KIA and 2019 world champion FunPlus Phoenix, who will be opening play in the group stage. This best-of-one match will set the tone for the tournament and potentially be one of the most competitive matches in the entire stage. …
League of Legends
DetonatioN FocusMe is first-ever LJL team to reach Worlds groups
Nicholas James
DetonatioN FocusMe has made League of Legends competitive history by becoming the first Japanese team to reach the World Championship group stage. The LJL has fought for a long time to be recognized as a competitive region on par with its more recognized peers. DFM defeated the LCS’ Cloud9, securing themselves first seed out of the group and a spot in the group stage. Worlds has always promised upsets aplenty …
League of Legends
LoL Preseason 2022 reveals new dragons, items, and more
Nicholas James
Riot Games isn’t sitting on its laurels in October, and the League of Legends developers have announced sweeping changes to the game heading into Preseason 2022. From new dragons and items to mastery changes, there are some wild changes in store for League of Legends players. Riot’s “LoL Pls” series always promises an exciting preview of upcoming changes to Summoner’s Rift. The recently released preview seems to be more of …
League of Legends
DWG KIA jungler Canyon fined for account sharing
Nicholas James
DWG KIA’s jungler Kim “Canyon” Geon-bu has been fined, along with the DWG organization, for account sharing. The punishment follows a since-deleted content piece published by DWG KIA in which Canyon shared his account with ex-IZ*ONE artist Hyewon Kang. The LCK has announced that DWG KIA will be fined ₩2,000,000 won, approximately $1,700 USD, while Canyon was fined ₩300,000, which is close to $250. The LCK champion’s attempt at original …
League of Legends
Riot reveals new Dragonmancer skins for Thresh, Yasuo, more
William Davis
A new set of Dragonmancer skins is coming to League of Legends soon and will include skins for some of the most popular champions in the game. The new cosmetics were first revealed on the League of Legends UK and Nordics Twitter account, showcasing a total of seven new colorful Dragonmancer cosmetics. This includes skins for five champions total, with two skins for Yasuo and a special prestige edition for …
League of Legends
Belgian and Dutch RELs merge, more changes to come
Nicholas James
Riot Games is looking to overhaul the secondary league system in Europe, and the Belgian and Dutch leagues are the first to see changes. The change will see the total number of participating teams shrink, with various qualification methods being made available to them. Discussions around changes to the REL system have been circulating of late, with reports of LEC teams no longer being required to field a secondary roster. …
League of Legends
Riot reveals Victorious Blitzcrank, 2021 ranked rewards
Nicholas James
League of Legends’ year is moving towards the off-season. Worlds is taking place until November 6 in Iceland, TFT’s World Championship is over, and the ranked season is winding to a close. Today, Riot Games revealed the annual Victorious skin rewarded to players who achieve Gold in ranked play. Victorious Blitzcrank is the next champion to join the line. The Victorious Blitzcrank skin was teased earlier with an image of …
Ovilee May, Team Liquid make Lil Nas X parody for Worlds
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Ovilee May and Team Liquid always promise hilarious content when the North American organization makes it to Worlds, and Worlds 2021 was no different. This time, Ovilee May, Barento “Raz” Mohammed, and Clayton “Captain Flowers” Raines took a page out of Lil Nas X’s book with their “Worlds Baby” video. It’s a goofy, over-the-top anthem for Team Liquid’s roster and the song been a hit among League of Legends fans. …
RED Canids upset Infinity Esports in Worlds 2021 Play-Ins
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Worlds 2021 began today, and there are already spicy upsets and unexpected happenings in Iceland thanks to RED Canids and Infinity Esports. Facing down its minor region fellows in Infinity Esports, RED Canids managed to string together excellent performances that can give fans plenty of hope for its future at the tournament. The first day of the tournament is generally expected to be unexciting relative to the rest of the …
LEC reveals start date for 2022 Spring Split before Worlds 2021
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Worlds is about to begin, but fans of European League of Legends already have plenty to look forwards to. The LEC announced the official start date for the 2022 Spring Season. Unfortunately, it also made the announcement that it will not be holding a LEC roadshow due to health concerns. The LEC studio in Berlin, Germany The LEC doubled down on its priority on improving the online viewing experience in …
Marvel reveals new collaboration with former Worlds champs FPX
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Players on one of China’s superteams are about to become superheroes, with FunPlus Phoenix announcing a merchandise collaboration with Marvel. FPX’s Marvel merch was announced on Weibo, with an accompanying animated video. Though the merch was teased, no new gear was officially revealed. Fans of the former Worlds championship-winning organization did get some cool art reimagining FPX players as superheroes: League of Legends has done strong work drawing in massive …
Unicorns of Love vs Galatasaray: 2021 Worlds betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
The first day of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship play-in stage will end with a banger between two teams that could potentially go all the way to the main event. It’s a match between CIS representative Unicorns of Love and the TCL’s Galatasaray Esports. Both teams come from regions that have previously been solid on the international stage and are considered to be among the strongest wild card …
How to watch the TFT World Championship Finals
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics’ World Championship is rolling around just before League of Legends has its own. If you’re looking for some TFT action to watch while you wait for Worlds proper to begin, we’ll catch you up and send you in the right direction. With 2021 coming to an end soon, this is your last chance to catch TFT at the highest level before the next set arrives. The TFT World …
This League of Legends bug made both teams lose in ranked
Nicholas James
League of Legends
League of Legends bugs aren’t rare in the slightest. From gimmicky interactions to clearly unintended glitches, there’s a lot. One recent bug, however, is turning heads. After two Master-ranked teams both came out of a 17-minute long ranked game with defeat on their match history, questions were raised. What sort of bug could cause 10 players to all lose the very same game, even though five of them had won? …
This is how the pros build new League champion Vex
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Vex is the latest addition to League of Legends’ roster of over 150 champions. She’s a darker spin on Yordles, and functions as an anti-mobility control mage with serious combo potential. But as with any champion that’s new to the rift, the correct build on Vex is still being experimented with. We’ll take a look at what the best players in the world are doing for Vex’s build and how …
What is the UPL? Everything you need to know
Nicholas James
League of Legends
The Unified Premier League, previously known as the Upsurge Premier League, is an amateur, academy, and collegiate competition in League of Legends. It pits some of the top academy rosters against amateur teams to further develop North America’s talent pool. Unified Esports provides the main venue for collegiate and academy mixed play in North America, and the UPL is just that. UPL is the designation for Unified Esports’ central league …
Cloud9 vs. DetonatioN FocusMe: 2021 Worlds betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
One of the most anticipated matches in the 2021 League of Legends World Championship play-in stage will be Cloud9 against DetonatioN FocusMe on the first day of the event. Both teams have been placed in group B and are looking like two of the favorites to make a run into the main event. In general, group B is looking much closer than group A where Hanwha Life and LNG Esports …
This matchmaking bug lets you easily hit diamond in LoL
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Julian “Tarzaned” Farokhian, a North American solo queue Challenger jungler, has revealed a matchmaking bug that drastically inflates an account’s MMR to diamond. This exploit appears to work on EUW and NA servers. This bug uses a fresh, unranked account to fool the lobby into applying another player’s Grandmasters or Challenger MMR and having a third player reap the benefits. This doesn’t give free LP, but does make gains in …
Wunder stokes rumor that he and Rekkles will leave G2 Esports
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Martin “Wunder” Hansen continues to add credibility to rumors that he’ll be stepping away from G2 Esports. With the organization’s disappointing playoffs run and failure to qualify for Worlds 2021, change was imminent. Among the predicted changes was Wunder leaving G2 after a subpar season. From account names to Twitter memes, Wunder has been using banter to suggest that he is indeed heading to the door. Wunder first took to …
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.
