League of Legends
League of Legends
Clearlove returns to pro play, joins EDG for 2021 LPL season
William Davis
After a year spent as head coach for EDward Gaming, Ming “Clearlove” Kai is returning to Summoner’s Rift as the team’s starting jungler. With a lot of big names retiring in the ongoing offseason, it’s now time for a player to return to the big stage. The long-time EDG veteran Clearlove will once again be the starting jungler for the team, after some mixed results as the team’s head coach …
League of Legends
DAMWON Gaming’s Flame announces retirement from pro LoL
William Davis
Another legend has announced his retirement before the 2021 season. This time it’s former FlyQuest and DAMWON Gaming top laner Lee “Flame” Ho-jong, who hangs his mouse and keyboard after eight years as a professional player. It was announced by Flame himself on his personal stream recently, where he said that he wouldn’t be playing professionally in 2021. Long time no see. Miss u guys!I will make an important announcement …
League of Legends
sOAZ rumored to coach French LDLC OL for the 2021 season
William Davis
One of the biggest veterans in League of Legends is rumored to return to Europe in 2021, but not as a player. 26-year-old top laner Paul “sOAZ” Boyer is rumored to be coaching the French LFL team LDLC OL in the upcoming season after the team won the European Masters Spring event in the 2020 season. If the rumors are true, this will be the first time that sOAZ is …
League of Legends
Swain and Pantheon among the best picks for LoL patch 10.25
William Davis
Tanks have been stealing all of the headlines so far in the 2021 preseason, but with LoL patch 10.25, that’s finally changing. Riot has gone through many attempts at this point to knock the tanks off the throne of solo queue, and it finally seems to be working. With patch 10.25, new champions are starting to see great win rates while several tanks are dropping. The game is still full …
Afreeca Freecs reveals a smooth new logo as part of rebrand
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Afreeca Freecs is shaking things up ahead of the 2021 season. The Korean esports organization revealed a new logo earlier this week. The tweet announcing the rebrand showed their old logo, a cartoony “F” with the org name in front of it, basically exploding. In its place, a new logo had appeared. The new logo showcases the team’s initials, A and F. The stylized letters are sleek and streamlined, playing …
Zac, Sett, Gangplank among worst champions in LoL patch 10.25
William Davis
League of Legends
The third patch of the 2021 preseason is live with 10.25 and Riot has once again made a lot of changes to both champions and items. Even though Riot is getting closer to a balanced state heading into 2021, there are still a lot of champions that are either too strong or too weak. Some of the weakest champions in solo queue are still sitting below a 45% win rate, …
JD Gaming signs former Suning coach Chashao for 2021 LPL season
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
JD Gaming has announced the addition of head coach Shih “Chashao” Yi-Hao. Fans of the professional League of Legends scene have called the change a “buff” for JD Gaming. Chashao is a very talented coach who is best known for leading underdogs Suning to Worlds 2020. Before becoming Suning’s head coach in 2013, Chashao coached Flash Wolves. “Our order of Chashao has arrived! We look forward to the breakthroughs he …
Riot reveals Battle Queens 2020 LoL event, including Nexus Blitz
William Davis
League of Legends
Nexus Blitz returns in the Battle Queens 2020 event, where players can earn a lot of rewards to round out the year. With the introduction of patch 10.25, Riot has released the new Battle Queen skin line. The new skins include cosmetics for Janna, Katarina, Qiyana, Diana, and the newest champion Rell. The patch will not only include the new skins and Rell but will also have the Battle Queens …
All rosters for each LEC team in the 2021 season
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2021 LEC season is getting close and the 10 teams have their respective rosters locked in. Just like in North America, the offseason in Europe has been wild and included a lot of big changes. Big names like mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković and top laner Barney “Alphari” Morris have left to play in the LCS, while a bunch of rookies from the European Leagues are getting a shot …
Seraphine is failing as a mid laner due to troubling kit
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s been almost two months since Seraphine’s release and the champion is not living up to Riot Games’ expectations. Seraphine is arguably the most problematic champion released in 2020. From its odd online presence to its controversial lore and its kit that looks like a Sona remake, players had every reason to dislike the Starry-Eyed Songstress. To make things worse, Seraphine is not even working how Riot intended her to …
Expectations for each LCS roster going into the 2021 season
Nicholas James
League of Legends
2021 looks like it is going to be a big season for the LCS. Many teams have rebuilt their entire rosters or made moves to acquire big stars in the wake of another year in which not a single LCS squad made it out of the group stage at the World Championships. With big changes come different expectations. Some teams are looking to break into international competition with a splash …
Here are the starting rosters for each LCS team in the 2021 season
William Davis
League of Legends
The offseason has been intense for LCS teams, with a lot of new big signings and star players retiring. After weeks of signings from left and right, the 10 LCS teams are now starting to be complete and it’s, therefore, time to look at the rosters. Fans can look forward to a 2021 season with a lot of new big names in the league that will hopefully increase the competitive …
TSM announces 2021 Academy roster including Hauntzer, Cody Sun
William Davis
League of Legends
Team SoloMid has announced its roster for the Academy league in 2021, and it includes a familiar face in top laner Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell and bot laner Liyu “Cody Sun” Sun. Joining the two LCS veterans is young Taiwanese player Wang “Yursan” Sheng-Yu, who previously played for Alpha Esports in the PCS and is a fairly unknown name. These three signings complete the TSM academy roster, which already had jungler …
Wild Rift is now available in Europe on iOS and Android
William Davis
League of Legends
It’s now possible to play the Wild Rift open beta in Europe and several other regions on both iOS and Android. Riot announced earlier this year that Wild Rift would extend its reach to several new regions on December 10, but it seems to have come a bit earlier than that. The regions that Wild Rift extends its open beta to include Europe, Vietnam, Oceania, Taiwan, Turkey, Russia, the Middle …
Former ROX Tigers mid laner Kuro retires from pro LoL
William Davis
League of Legends
Another member of the famed ROX Tigers squad has chosen to retire, and this time it’s mid laner Lee “Kuro” Seo-haeng who will be putting his mouse and keyboard on the shelf. It’s hasn’t been long since former ROX Tigers support Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyun made the announcement that he would retire, and now Kuro will be doing the same. Kuro was the mid laner for ROX Tigers when the team …
LCK star GorillA retires after 1 season with SANDBOX Gaming
William Davis
League of Legends
Another legend has retired from professional League of Legends, with support player Kang “GorillA” Beom-hun calling it a career. The 2021 offseason has been full of great players retiring and GorillA is the next in line. The Korean support has had a fantastic career and will likely be remembered as one of the best support players of all time. He is mostly known for his time on ROX Tigers, one …
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
