League of Legends
League of Legends
Alphari is already dominating in the LCS with the highest DPM
William Davis
Team Liquid’s new top laner Barney “Alphari” Morris is already proving himself as a great pick up after dealing the most damage per minute in the LCS Lock In so far. After leaving Origen in the LEC to join up with Team Liquid for the 2021 LCS season, Alphari has lived up to all expectations so far. The British top laner is already showing why he was considered one of …
League of Legends
Can T1 return to greatness in 2021?
William Davis
T1, formerly known as SK TelecomT1, is indisputably the most popular team in competitive League of Legends. The South Korean organization holds several records, including being the only team to win the World Championship three times. T1 is home of the player who could be considered the face of League of Legends esports, the unkillable demon king, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. T1 won its third World Championship title in 2016 and …
League of Legends
DWG KIA tops the LCK standings with win over Gen.G
William Davis
The defending world champions from DWG KIA are back in form after taking down one of their biggest contenders, Gen.G. The third week of the 2021 LCK season started out with a banger. So far, Gen.G has been looking like the biggest threat to take down DWG KIA so there were a lot of expectations going into the match. As predicted, Gen.G was able to compete with the world champions, …
League of Legends
Riot will nerf heavy hitters in Patch 11.3 including Olaf, Ivern
William Davis
With LoL Patch 11.3 fast approaching, Riot has revealed nerfs to several champions who are currently seeing a lot of play in both professional and solo queue. For the third patch of Season 11, Riot will still be focusing heavily on balancing the new item system, but more and more champions are also being touched upon. With the professional season starting back up, Riot has realized that quite a few …
League of Legends
Rekkles ends first LEC week at G2 Esports with huge KDA
William Davis
G2 Esports’ new bot laner Martin “Rekkles” Larsson dominated the first week of the 2021 LEC Spring Split with some impressive stats. After only three games with G2, Rekkles is already showing promising signs that he was the right man to replace Luka “Perkz” Perković. Not only was Rekkles a big part of G2’s first three wins in the 2021 LEC season, he also knocked every opponent out of the …
League of Legends
Viego sees terrible win rates in several roles after release
William Davis
The newest champion in League of Legends, Viego, is struggling to find success in solo queue despite being played actively in three different roles. After his finally being unleashed on Summoner’s Rift, players are spamming Viego in solo queue when he isn’t banned. So far, the Ruined King has seen a lot of play in the jungle, mid lane, and top. With many possible roles to be flexed into, Viego …
League of Legends
Team Liquid bests FlyQuest, heads to LCS Lock In semifinals
William Davis
Team Liquid slaughtered FlyQuest and claimed its rightful spot in the 2021 LCS Lock In semifinals. Team Liquid is not playing around in the LCS Lock In event. The team secured two clean victories over FlyQuest and came out victorious in the quarterfinals series. Despite having two new members on its roster, who just recently joined the team in California, Liquid is looking better than ever. FlyQuest didn’t stand a …
League of Legends
Evil Geniuses heads to LCS Lock In semifinals to face Team Liquid
William Davis
Evil Geniuses has qualified for the semifinals of the LCS Lock In with a solid win against Golden Guardians. After impressing in the LCS Lock In group stage, Evil Geniuses took on Golden Guardians in the quarterfinals where they took a dominant win. In just two games, the revamped Evil Geniuses lineup ran over the young talents from Golden Guardians, albeit after a bumpy game one. Evil Geniuses will advance …
Cloud9 beats TSM, faces 100 Thieves in LCS Lock In semifinals
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9 has secured a place in the semifinals of the 2021 LCS Lock In tournament by taking down Team SoloMid. Cloud9 and TSM met in the first round of the knockout stage, for one of the most anticipated possible matches of the event. Despite the hype around this series, it didn’t go exactly as the audience expected. C9 and TSM, who were expected to dominate the LCS this year, had …
Here’s how to build the newest LoL champion Viego
William Davis
League of Legends
The Ruined King Viego has made his entrance to League of Legends and is already popular in solo queue, but what is the best way to build him? With Viego arriving in LoL, players are starting to find out how to build and play him in the most optimal way possible. As Viego isn’t available in professional play yet, there are many builds and a lot of different variants can …
Fnatic flop against Misfits in 2021 LEC Spring debut
William Davis
League of Legends
Fnatic is off to a rough start in the 2021 LEC Spring split, as the team debuted with a defeat against Misfits. Fnatic’s new roster couldn’t live up to expectations and dropped its first game of the season, to everyone’s surprise. Misfits, a team that most analysts predicted to perform poorly, took control of the game and never gave Fnatic a chance to recover. Fnatic put together a composition that …
Rekkles, G2 Esports take down MAD Lions in LEC 2021 opener
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2021 LEC season has finally begun and it started with a bang where G2 Esports took down MAD Lions. Fans from all over the world tuned in when the 2021 LEC season kicked off with an exciting match between G2 Esports and MAD Lions. With over 230,000 viewers tuning in, G2 Esports and new ADC Martin “Rekkles” Larsson took down the new MAD Lions squad with aggressive, disciplined play. …
CaptainFlowers announces move to freelance before LCS broadcast
William Davis
League of Legends
One of the most popular LCS casters Clayton “CaptainFlowers” Raines recently announced that he will be a freelancer in 2021. CaptainFlowers will be a freelancer this year but will still be on the LCS broadcast every week like fans are used to. Moving to freelance means that CaptainFlowers will now be able to do other things on the side without being tied to a contract with Riot Games. According to …
Riot teases changes to URF to adjust to LoL’s new item system
William Davis
League of Legends
When URF returns in 2021, it will be optimized with League of Legends’ new item system in mind. It was recently teased by lead game mode designer Reina “Reinboom” Sweet that there will be quite a few changes made to URF that will “embrace the preseason item rework.” The main goal is to let players better engage with the item system in URF without falling into traps that can have …
Team Liquid vs. TSM: 2021 LCS Lock In betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
Team Liquid and Team SoloMid are meeting on January 22 for their first battle of the year. The teams are currently tied in the 2021 LCS Lock In tournament, and a victory here could mean first place in the group. Team Liquid and TSM have developed a rivalry in the LCS. TSM used to be top team in the region until Team Liquid rolled in and claimed four consecutive titles. …
LCS teams jump into top 10 in 1st LoL team rankings of Season 11
William Davis
League of Legends
A slew of offseason roster swaps has resulted in a very different top 10 League of Legends team rankings. It’s a new season and teams from all around the world are gearing up to battle in their respective leagues and make a run for the 2021 World Championship. To keep track of the best teams in the world and how they’re projected to perform, here is the first iteration of …
ShowMaker tops first LoL player rankings of 2021
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s a new year for League of Legends and the professional season is already up and running. Here is the first LoL player ranking of 2021. After a long offseason break, the LoL rankings are back. Fans have seen a lot of roster changes in the offseason and it’s now finally time to see which organizations managed to make the best decisions. Many players will return to Summoner’s Rift after …
T1 vs. KT Rolster: 2021 LCK Spring Split betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
T1 and KT Rolster are meeting on January 24 for round one of the Telecom War in the 2021 LCK Spring Split. The Telecom War needs no introduction. The rivalry started during the days of pro StarCraft: Brood War and is now going stronger than ever. On Sunday, fans will watch as these long-time adversaries meet for the first time in 2021. Both teams had similar starts in the season …
KT Rolster TusiN announces his retirement from pro League
William Davis
League of Legends
Former KT Rolster and Afreeca Freecs support Park “TusiN” Jong-ik has announced his retirement. TusiN is retiring after six years of professional play in his career. The iconic LCK support shared a statement through his Facebook account, where he explaind that he would be transitioning to a streaming career based on AfreecaTV and YouTube. “I haven’t been on social media for a while. I’ll be retiring. I debuted when I …
Udyr in pro LoL? Jungler picked by DRX Pyosik in LCK match
Nicholas James
League of Legends
Udyr the spirit walker was picked recently in the LCK. He was chosen by Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon in the second game of a DRX series against Nongshim RedForce. Pyosik gave Udyr its first appearance in the league in almost 1,800 days. He also delivered the champion its first win of the season. The champion has not been discussed recently as a potential pick in the LCK, or in any other …
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.
