League of Legends
League of Legends
Nerfs to Hecarim, Udyr will shift LoL jungle meta in patch 11.7
William Davis
League of Legends patch 11.7 is looking to be a big one and will potentially change the meta in multiple lanes. In a recent patch preview, gameplay design director Mark “Scuffy” Yetter presented 17 adjustments for champions with the goal being to “shake up” the jungle, bot, and support metagame. In both solo queue and professional play, these roles have benefitted from seriously strong champions. In patch 11.7, players might …
League of Legends
These are the best champions for solo queue in LoL patch 11.6
William Davis
The sixth patch of season 11 has hit the League of Legends live servers and some specific champions are dominating the solo queue ladder. Since the new season began, the meta has already developed a lot. Several different champions have been at the top of the priority list but also fell out again because of Riot’s big changes in each patch. The same goes for the new item system, which …
League of Legends
This is how to counter Garen in LoL solo queue games
William Davis
Players are likely to run into Garen at almost any solo queue rank in League of Legends, so it’s important to know the best way to counter him. As a champion that was first released more than 10 years ago, Garen is a classic in LoL and every player likely knows who he is. Garen is one of the most basic champions in the game and one of the first …
News
LPL and LCK players dominate the latest LoL player rankings
William Davis
The second League of Legends player ranking of March has landed and it is without any representation from Western players in the top 10. In just two weeks, a lot has happened in the LoL player rankings. The top two ranked players remain the same, but with DWG KIA mid laner Heo “ShowMaker” Su pulling further ahead of FunPlus Phoenix top laner Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon. The rest of the top …
League of Legends
Cloud9 and Team Liquid dominate 2021 LCS Spring All-Pro teams
William Davis
The 2021 LCS Spring 1st All-Pro team has been revealed and it’s dominated by Cloud9 and Team Liquid players. With the 2021 LCS Mid-Season Showdown starting this weekend, Riot has revealed the All-Pro teams for the league. The teams are based on regular-split performances, during iwhich fans had the chance to vote for the most notable players in each role. The 1st LCS All-Pro team is dominated by C9 and …
League of Legends
These are the best counters to Teemo in League of Legends
William Davis
Teemo has been a part of League of Legends since 2009 and today remains a champion that is hard to deal with at many solo queue ranks. The Swift Scout has become known as an obnoxious champion that most players hate to play against. This goes for pretty much all lanes in the game, which has resulted in global memes about Teemo being the devil himself. The reason for this …
League of Legends
Riot Games CEO responds to harassment claims, releases files
Olivia Richman
Riot Games’ CEO Nicolo Laurent gave an official response to sexual harassment and discrimination allegations on Wednesday. In the response, Laurent denied all of Sharon O’Donnell’s claims and questioned her credibility. Laurent denied that he made inappropriate comments to O’Donnell, the plaintiff. He claimed that he never made any comments about her appearance, discussed his underwear, or yelled at her, all of which has been alleged. Laurent also stated that …
League of Legends
Dignitas’ Neo led the 2021 LCS Spring in total kills with 94
William Davis
Dignitas bot laner Toàn “Neo” Trần is entering the 2021 LCS Spring playoffs with the most total kills among all players in the league. The 2021 LCS Spring Season regular split is over and one specific player can enter the playoffs with a big boost of confidence. It’s Dignitas’ bot laner Neo, who has showcased great skill during his first full complete split as a starting player in the LCS. …
Viego will be disabled throughout the 2021 LEC Spring playoffs
William Davis
League of Legends
Viego will continue to be disabled throughout the 2021 LEC Spring Split playoffs because of bugs that remain unfixed. It has been over two months since Viego first entered League of Legends, and he is yet to make his debut on the competitive scene. Usually, Viego would be enabled in pro play just a couple of weeks after his release, but this hasn’t been the case. Because of several game-breaking …
Riot gives full preview of eight new Space Groove skins for LoL
William Davis
League of Legends
League of Legends is about to get groovy as the new Space Groove skin line will hit Summoner’s Rift quite soon. In a recent Public Beta Environment (PBE) preview, Riot gave a full look at eight new Space Groove skins. The skins will include cosmetics for seven different champions, with a special prestige edition for Lulu. The other champions included in the new skin line are Blitzcrank, Nunu, Nasus, Rumble, …
MagiFelix extends his contract with Astralis, Nukeduck released
William Davis
League of Legends
Astralis mid laner Carl “MagiFelix” Boström has extended his contract with the organization for the remainder of 2021. In a recent announcement by Astralis, MagiFelix is announced to be staying with the team for the remainder of the 2021 LEC season. MagiFelix joined the team in February as a replacement for former mid laner Erlend “Nukeduck” Holm, who had to step down due to personal reasons. As the 2021 LEC …
Alienware pulls LoL sponsorship after sexual harassment allegations
William Davis
League of Legends
A report says that Alienware will reportedly no longer be a global League of Legends esports partner following sexual harassment allegations made against Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent. According to a report at Dot Esports, Alienware is terminating its global esports sponsorship with Riot Games 10 months early. Alienware reportedly cited its concern with Riot Game’s public image following the recent allegations and previous cases where Riot has been caught …
These are the 2021 LCS Mid-Season Showdown teams
William Davis
League of Legends
Six weeks have gone by in the 2021 LCS Spring Season regular split, and now only the Mid-Season Showdown is left, where the best teams will fight for the trophy. The 10 LCS teams have been cut down to six for the Mid-Season Showdown. The showdown is what fans know as the playoffs, but with a new name after the format changes for 2021. The Mid-Season Showdown will find the …
These are the teams for the 2021 LEC Spring Split playoffs
William Davis
League of Legends
Eight weeks of regular-split games have gone by, and the six best teams in the 2021 LEC Spring Split are now ready for the playoffs. The LEC has proven to be more competitive than ever, with teams from top to bottom able to beat each other. Fans have experienced the continuous dominance of G2 Esports, but with Rogue right behind as a serious contender. Young teams such as SK Gaming …
Rogue end the regular LEC split on a good note with win over Fnatic
William Davis
League of Legends
Rogue dominated the last match of the 2021 LEC Spring regular split by taking down Fnatic and throwing them out of the top four. Going into the match, Rogue didn’t have a whole lot to play for after G2 Esports secured first place with a win against SK Gaming. The G2 victory locked in Rogue for second place, which didn’t give them more than honor to play for against Fnatic. …
TFT set 5 adding new game modes, unique mechanics for Teemo
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
Riot Games has teased what’s coming in Teamfight Tactics’ fifth set. TFT Fates is wrapping up in the near future and with the end of set 4.5 will come TFT: Reckoning. As one would expect, TFT: Reckoning will toss out many of Fates’ mechanics, champions, origins, and classes in favor of a new group inspired by “the battle between good and evil.” TFT designer Stephen Mortimer discussed some of the …
Schalke’s LIMIT outplays Crownshot on Alistar in last week of LEC
William Davis
League of Legends
Schalke 04 support Dino “LIMIT” Tot ran away with all the glory in his team’s win against Vitality after outplaying Juš “Crownshot” Marušič on Alistar. The last week of the 2021 LEC Spring Split has a lot of great storylines to follow, but the best play of the week might have already happened in Schalke 04’s critical win over Vitality. In the dominant win by Schalke, LIMIT managed to outplay …
Drafting the best team for the final week of LEC Spring
William Davis
League of Legends
Want to get some skin in the game with your favorite esports players? With our partner DraftKings, you can do just that. Click the link here to see their full slate of esports contests! Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com for details. The LEC is heading into its last week of the regular season, which means that it’s time to draft the last fantasy LEC team before the playoffs start. When the playoffs …
Watch this former world champion win a 1v1 with just one hand
William Davis
League of Legends
Playing League of Legends with one hand is a challenge for most, but former Gen.G top laner Lee “CuVee” Seong-jin managed to make it work in a recent solo queue game. During a stream, CuVee managed to get first blood in a solo queue match while using his phone. CuVee made the play with just one hand, showing that he still has great skill despite being retired. Just two minutes …
Riot shares the thought process behind choosing legendary skins
William Davis
League of Legends
Understanding the thought process behind which champions are being chosen for new skins can be hard, so Riot recently gave players an explanation. As more champions are being added to League of Legends every year, it’s getting harder to provide all champions with new skins. This has resulted in certain champions being without new skins for years, making fans of those specific champions frustrated. In a recent Ask Riot blog, …
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.
