League of Legends
League of Legends
2022 Asian Games may allow Korean LoL stars to avoid military service
Steven Rondina
The inclusion of esports in the 2022 Asian Games comes with a unique perk for Korean esports players. In South Korea, all adult men must have served at least 18 months in the military by age 28. Exemptions can be given for a variety of reasons, including those classified as “outstanding athletes” who “enhance the national prestige.” Given how the historical baseline for “outstanding athlete” has been success in international …
League of Legends
The most improved professional players of 2020
William Davis
The 2020 season of League of Legends has been one of the most competitive in years, with several players fighting their way up through the ranks and improving immensely. Despite playing in an online format for most of the year, 2020 has been great for competitive League of Legends. A lot of new players have proved themselves on the biggest stage, with everything culminating at the 2020 World Championship in …
League of Legends
The LCS has one big advantage over the LEC, says G2 Ocelote
William Davis
At the 2020 World Championship, North America had the worst performance by the region to date. Team SoloMid went down in history as the first number one seed from a major region to end the tournament winless. FlyQuest and Team Liquid both failed to make it of groups. Those results reignited the conversation about North America as a region and its weaknesses. In the offseason, LCS teams went big with …
League of Legends
DAMWON vs. Afreeca Freecs: KeSPA Cup 2020 betting analysis
William Davis
KeSPA Cup 2020 has already kicked off and now two big names are set to clash in group A. The defending world champions from DAMWON Gaming will meet last year’s KeSPA Cup winners Afreeca Freecs. So far, DAMWON has gotten off to a perfect start while Afreeca is falling behind. Afreeca needs to win this match to stay alive in the fight for a playoffs spot. So far, the two …
League of Legends
Former TSM player Chaox explains his return to streaming LoL
William Davis
Former Team SoloMid bot laner Shan “Chaox” Huang is back to pursue streaming after seven years of being under the radar. A familiar face from the early seasons of League of Legends is back and will be streaming regularly once again. In a recent vlog, Chaox talked about his past seven years and what has happened since he was kicked from TSM in 2013. Chaox even addressed a mental breakdown …
League of Legends
This crazy Gragas combo means a pentakill in Nexus Blitz
William Davis
Pentakills are always a pleasure to watch in League of Legends, but this Gragas combo takes it to another level in Nexus Blitz. In a recent Nexus Blitz highlight, a Gragas player managed to secure himself a pentakill with just a single spell rotation. The clip instantly went viral, as the Gragas found all five of his opponents clumped up in the mid jungle. The Gragas saw his chance to …
League of Legends
The best junglers to finish your season’s solo queue climb
William Davis
Jungle mains have had a blast in the jungle during recent patches, and there are still a lot of strong junglers to climb with before the year ends. Since the 2021 preseason hit the live servers, junglers have been sitting at the best win rates in the game and gotten a lot of attention from Riot. It started out with a lot of strong tank junglers, but after recent nerfs …
League of Legends
All rosters for the 2020 KeSPA Cup have been announced
William Davis
The 2020 competitive League of Legends season will end with a bang when 10 teams from South Korea will fight at the 2020 KeSPA Cup. The KeSPA Cup is the tournament where smaller organizations can get a chance to play against the biggest names from the LCK, while LCK orgs can test out their new rosters and players for the upcoming season. This year, all 10 LCK organizations will be …
Worlds 2020 substitute Uniboy joins LGD Gaming in the LPL
William Davis
League of Legends
LGD Gaming has found its new mid laner for the 2021 LPL season and it’s none other than Chen “Uniboy” Chang-Chu, who impressed fans at the 2020 World Championship. According to ahq eSports Club, the young mid lane talent has transferred to LGD in the LPL after a mutual agreement was made between the two organizations and Uniboy himself. Uniboy joins the team after an impressive performance at the 2020 …
Riot dev confirms League of Legends MMO is in development
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is developing an MMO based in Runeterra, Lead Game Designer Greg Street confirmed on Twitter. The developer took everyone by surprise on Thursday night when he casually confirmed that Riot is working on a major new project. He discussed his work expanding the lore of the League of Legends universe and gave a nonchalant confirmation that he was working on an MMO project when asked by a fan. …
KT Rolster star Smeb latest LoL pro to announce retirement
William Davis
League of Legends
Another member of the original ROX Tigers lineup has called it quits as a professional gamer. This time, it’s top laner Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho. Smeb ended his career after seven years. He started with Incredible Miracle 2 in 2013 and slowly climbed his way up through the ranks in Korea, before ending up on HUYA Tigers. The team would later be rebranded as ROX Tigers. Smeb ended his career after …
Worlds winner Nuguri officially joins LPL’s FunPlus Phoenix
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s finally official that former DAMWON Gaming top laner Jang “Nuguri” Ha-gwon will be playing for FunPlus Phoenix in 2021. From one world championship team to another, Nuguri will be playing in the LPL for the first time in 2021, where he will play regularly against some of the best top laners in the world. The newly-crowned world champion joins the team after three years with DAMWON, where he along …
JD Gaming set to pick up Mystic and Xiye for 2021 LPL season
William Davis
League of Legends
The old Team WE duo of bot laner Jin “Mystic” Seong-jun and mid laner Su “Xiye” Han-Wei will play for JD Gaming in the 2021 LPL season. After one season apart, the legendary Team WE duo is reunited and will be fighting together on JD Gaming in the upcoming season. JD Gaming managed to prove itself as one of the best teams in the world in 2020 and is now …
This is why Riot wants to buff Grievous Wounds in patch 1.11
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is looking to make some significant changes to all Grievous Wounds items in the game for LoL patch 11.1. The first patch of 2021 won’t just include changes to champions, but also a lot of changes to items as well. For this patch, one of the biggest changes being made is to Grievous Wounds, which will get a great boost in duration to fight off the scarier healers …
Riot reveals LoL patch 11.1 to include item adjustments, buffs
William Davis
League of Legends
Even though the first patch of 2021 is still weeks away, Riot is already previewing LoL patch 11.1. According to gameplay design director Mark “Scuffy” Yetter, the first patch of 2021 will focus on some item adjustments and buffs, and small changes to a few champions. This preseason has seen Riot focus on balancing the new item system and that will continue with patch 11.1. Very early Patch Preview for …
Uzi makes Varus look good with crazy 1v2 outplay in solo queue
William Davis
League of Legends
Varus has been in a bad state for several patches. But former RNG bot laner Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao recently made him look strong through a crazy outplay. After his retirement earlier this year, Uzi has been streaming regularly and showing that he still has what it takes to be one of the best in his position. The latest viral outplay was done on Varus, who is currently the worst marksman …
The LEC will start play for the 2021 season on January 22
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s finally official that the 2021 LEC season will start on Friday, January 22. The date has been set by Riot as the official start date shortly after the LCS announced its new league format and start dates. While the LCS is making big changes to the format, the LEC is looking to keep the format from 2020 and continue to build up the European brand on the backs of …
The best way to build new LoL support champion Rell
William Davis
League of Legends
Rell only recently entered League of Legends, and players are slowly starting to figure out how to build her in the most optimal way. The tanky support is already seeing a lot of play in solo queue and even though her win rates are lacking, she does have some strengths that can make or break a game. Rell is the epitome of a tank support, which gives her some pretty …
How to see how many hours you’ve played League of Legends
William Davis
League of Legends
When a player purchases a video game, they know how many hours it could take them to finish it. Online gaming has no end, so players that choose these types of games don’t know for just how long they’ll be in the queue. Some single-player games might seem like bigger investments at first. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt can stretch up to 100 hours long. According to some accounts, the …
How does mobile’s Wild Rift compare to League of Legends on PC?
William Davis
League of Legends
As Wild Rift is opening up its beta in more regions, fans are starting to compare the new mobile game to the original League of Legends PC game. Wild Rift is already seeing a lot of praise for its great animations and smooth interface as players are pointing out features that could be implemented in the League of Legends PC client. Wild Rift is still only in its open beta, …
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.
