League of Legends
League of Legends
100 Thieves is currently on an 8-game winning streak in the LCS
William Davis
After several years of chasing an LCS trophy, 100 Thieves is finally looking like a team that can go all the way for this 2021 LCS Summer Split. 100 Thieves is currently topping the LCS after the fifth week of the split. With a split record of 13-2 and 24-9 throughout the whole season, 100 Thieves is placed at the top of the leaderboard in front of the three big …
League of Legends
Gen.G vs. T1: 2021 LCK Summer betting analysis
William Davis
Two LCK giants will face off during the fifth week of the 2021 LCK Summer Split, but the teams are currently in very different spots on the leaderboard. It will be first-place team Gen.G taking on the legendary T1 in a best-of-three. Despite previous achievements, T1 is currently struggling to get a foothold this split and is stuck in sixth place with a 4-4 record. Gen.G is looking sharp at …
League of Legends
New champs Viego and Gwen have dominated League since release
William Davis
Viego and Gwen have been two of the most popular champions since their release and are currently among the strongest champions in both solo queue and professional play, especially when they are paired up together. After their entering the professional scene at the same time, players in solo queue have really started to realize just how strong the two new champions are. Both champions can be played top, mid, or …
League of Legends
G2 Esports’ Caps has the worst KDA of any LEC mid-laner
William Davis
The 2021 LEC Summer Split has not been a good one for G2 Esports thus far, and especially not for its Danish star mid-laner Rasmus “Caps” Winther. Usually, Caps is one of the most consistent players in the region but this split has been something else. The 21-year-old mid-laner is statistically one of the worst mid-laners in the LEC Summer Split despite dominating during the spring. The lack of international …
LEC returns to LEC Studio, LAN play in week 5 of summer split
William Davis
League of Legends
LEC players and fans alike have been waiting patiently for teams to return to the LEC Studio in Berlin and now, it’s finally happening. Starting from the upcoming 2021 LEC Summer Split Week 5, teams will return to on-stage play in the studio but with a few caveats. While everyone had probably hoped for a full return, the LEC will start slowly and have the first, third, and fifth game …
Big changes coming to TFT Reckoning with Dawn of Heroes update
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics’ latest set, Reckoning, is in for a big change with League of Legends patch 11.15. Riot Games has revealed TFT Reckoning: Dawn of Heroes. Dawn of Heroes is a mid-set update that will significantly overhaul some of the main mechanics of TFT Reckoning while also introducing some new features of its own. #TFT Reckoning: Dawn of Heroes TL;DR! ⚠️Shadow Items are leaving ????Radiant Items have been added, they’re …
Riot introduce a new music album for content creators called Sessions
William Davis
League of Legends
Streamers and content creators are in for a treat as Riot Games has just launched its new music project called Sessions. The first project Sessions: Vi includes a 37-song instrumental music album that will be completely free and safe for content creators to use. The album puts a big emphasis on the instrumental and has cut out any sort of lyrics in all songs. This will hopefully make the music …
These League of Legends champions still have broken hitboxes
William Davis
League of Legends
After 11 years, League of Legends still has a lot of questionable hitboxes on its champions, and some of the worst revolve around hooks and grabs. For years, players from all over the world have struggled with weird hitboxes in League of Legends and it has gotten to a point where it’s looking unlikely that it will ever be fully fixed. While develop Riot Games has worked on improving hitboxes …
Are League of Legends battle passes worth it? Some say no
William Davis
League of Legends
Battle passes have been a common way for game developers to include extra in-game content for players while earning money at the same time. This is something Riot Games has taken to using in League of Legends, but the question now is if Riot’s approach is too cheap or maybe even too greedy compared to other big games. Battle passes have been used in games such as Fortnite, Apex Legends, and …
CLG vs Evil Geniuses 2021 LCS Summer betting & fantasy analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
CLG will try to turn its losing streak around when facing off against Evil Geniuses on the second day of the 2021 LCS Summer Split Week 5. After a fantastic fourth week for CLG, the team is back on a losing streak of three games that has lowered the hype around the squad once again. CLG managed to pull off three wins in a row during week 3, where the …
Gen.G is the only undefeated team in the LCK Summer Split at 7-0
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2021 LCK Summer Split is currently looking very competitive but Gen.G stands out as the clear top team with a current record of 7-0. After performing well for a long time, it’s no surprise that Gen.G is placed at the top of the LCK after the first three weeks of the split. What is surprising is that the team is the only undefeated team in the league and currently …
Nocturne nerfed on LoL patch 11.14 after solo queue dominance
William Davis
League of Legends
League of Legends patch 11.14 has hit the Public Beta Environment (PBE) for testing and will be including some much-needed nerfs to Nocturne especially. In the most recent patch preview, Riot’s new lead game designer Jeevun Sidhu gave some insight into the upcoming changes. The patch will include some nerfs for Nocturne, which many have been waiting for after seeing his dominance in solo queue recently. Furthermore, the patch will …
Tahm Kench will be disabled in the LEC after his new rework
William Davis
League of Legends
Tahm Kench won’t be available for play during the upcoming week of the2021 LEC Summer Split after his most recent rework on LoL patch 11.13. Many fans are probably excited to see how the newly updated Tahm Kench will do in professional play, but they will have to wait a bit longer. In the European LEC, Tahm Kench won’t be available for the upcoming games as his changes are being …
Schalke 04 sells LEC franchise for $30 million to Team BDS
William Davis
League of Legends
Schalke 04 will officially be leaving the LEC after the ongoing 2021 competitive season. After months of speculation, it’s now official that Schalke 04 has sold its LEC spot to the Swiss organization Team BDS for €26.5 million ($31.5 million). Schalke 04 had to sell the spot due to “battle the financial pressure” that the football club has faced after being relegated from the German Bundesliga. Taking over the coveted …
Excel to promote Markoon, Advienne for LEC Summer Week 4
Tokoni Uti
League of Legends
Having earned only two wins in the first three weeks of the 2021 LEC Summer Split, Excel is promoting jungler Mark “Markoon” van Woensel and Henk “Advienne” Reijenga to its starting roster for week 4. Excel announced the changes in a video led by coach Joey “YoungBuck” Steltenpool in which he began by explaining the team’s thought process behind the roster changes after a similar move was rumored earlier in …
100 Thieves Abbedagge is leading in KDA among LCS mid laners
William Davis
League of Legends
After the first four weeks of the 2021 LCS Summer Split, 100 Thieves new mid laner Felix “Abbedagge” Braun is already pulling off some incredible stats and impact on Summoner’s Rift. It was with big expectations when 100 Thieves announced Abbedagge as its new mid laner for the summer split back in April. So far, the former Schalke 04 player has lived up to all those expectations and likely also …
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.
League of Legends
League of Legends
League of Legends
League of Legends
