League of Legends
League of Legends
Former ROX Tigers mid laner Kuro retires from pro LoL
William Davis
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 …
League of Legends
LCK star GorillA retires after 1 season with SANDBOX Gaming
William Davis
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
Riot previews new Marauder, Warden skins for Kalista, Quinn, more
William Davis
Riot recently introduced four brand new skins to close out the year. The skins include new cosmetics for Kalista, Kled, Quinn, and Gragas. Both Kalista and Kled will be receiving skins for the Marauder skin line, joining champions such as Olaf, Warwick, Alistar, and Ashe who already have Marauder cosmetics. It also looks like Xin Zhao will be receiving a Marauder skin. Quinn and Gragas will receive some light-themed heavenly …
League of Legends
Can SwordArt challenge CoreJJ as the best support in the LCS?
William Davis
After signing with Team SoloMid on a record-breaking contract, Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh will be playing in the LCS with an eye towards becoming the best support in the region. Team Liquid support Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in has been considered the best support in the LCS for a while, and may even be the best player in the entire league. The recent Worlds finalist SwordArt has now come to challenge that spot …
League of Legends
Perkz says he wasn’t allowed to go to Fnatic, will be the best mid in LCS
William Davis
New Cloud9 mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković talked about his offseason and how he wasn’t allowed to join the rivals from Fnatic by G2 Esports on a recent Croatian podcast. During the podcast, Perkz talked about his time with G2 and some of the offers he had gotten during the offseason. Besides the questions from the podcast host, the audience also got to ask the Croatian mid laner a few …
League of Legends
Lost completes the TSM 2021 roster as the new bot laner
William Davis
Team SoloMid has found its successor to Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng in former Academy bot laner Lawrence “Lost” Hui. Lost will be promoted to the TSM LCS squad for the 2021 season after a great year with the TSM Academy team. Lost will have to fill the big shoes of Doublelift, who recently retired. He will attempt this alongside 2020 World Championship finalist Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh who signed a record-breaking contract …
League of Legends
Suning huanfeng drops from LPL All-Stars over cheating scandal
William Davis
The upcoming 2020 All-Stars event will be without Suning bot laner Tang “huanfeng” Huan-Feng, who was originally set to represent the LPL, after a cheating scandal involving the young star player has gone viral on the Chinese forum Weibo. The scandal recently resulted in an official statement from Suning on the same platform, saying that huanfeng will be absent from the upcoming All-Star weekend. Suning said in the post that …
League of Legends
TSM named the most valuable esports organization in the world
Steven Rondina
Business magazine Forbes has released a list of the 10 most valuable esports organizations in the world. Sitting atop the list is the popular Team SoloMid, more frequently referred to as TSM. Forbes talked with a number of stakeholders in the esports industry including organizations, investors, and analysts. The end result is a list of the top-10 most valuable esports companies and an estimated value for each. These are Forbes’ …
Biofrost leaves TSM, takes break from professional play
William Davis
League of Legends
Professional support player Vincent “Biofrost” Wang has officially left Team SoloMid and will be taking a break from competing at a professional level. After a solid year with TSM, Biofrost will take “at least a split off” to focus on streaming and other opportunities. It was already known that Biofrost wouldn’t be the starting support for TSM in 2021 after former Suning player Hu “SwordArt” Shuo Chieh joined the team …
Cloud9 announces 2021 LCS coaching staff including Mithy
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9 has completed its LCS coaching staff for the 2021 season with three new signings who will assist head coach Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin. After officially announcing Reignover as the new head coach back in November, C9 has now shared the rest of the coaching staff. The new additions to the coaching team are former support player and Fnatic coach Alfonso “Mithy” Rodríguez, former 100 Thieves Academy player Maxwell “Max” Waldo, …
ZionSpartan rumored to fill out new Cloud9 Academy roster
William Davis
League of Legends
Former CLG and Golden Guardians Academy top laner Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaya is reportedly joining Cloud9 Academy for the 2021 season. After over a year spent on Golden Guardians Academy, it looks like the veteran top laner will move on to a new academy project at one of the biggest esports organizations in North America. According to rumors, ZionSpartan will play alongside talented players such as bot laner Calvin “K1ng” Truong and …
Impact joins Evil Geniuses roster ahead of LCS 2021 season
William Davis
League of Legends
Evil Geniuses has announced former Team Liquid star Jeong “Impact” Eon-young as its starting top laner for 2021. Evil Geniuses finalized its 2021 roster with the addition of Impact to the squad. Impact is joining returning members Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen and Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro. The team also signed former FlyQuest support Lee “IgNar” Dong-geun, who will be laning with Matthew “Deftly” Chen, who was recently promoted from the academy …
DRX promotes three rookies to main roster for 2021 LCK season
William Davis
League of Legends
DRX revamped its 2021 LCK roster with the addition of three rookies to the roster. DRX will look very different in 2021, as the organization went for a roster that consists of rookies and up-and-coming players. After a disappointing end to its 2020 season, DRX is trying a new strategy for next spring. The organization kept jungler Hong “Pyosik” Chang-hyeon in the roster, while the rest of the players decided …
KT Rolster fans are protesting after recent offseason signings
William Davis
League of Legends
Another big drama in South Korean esports is unfolding after KT Rolster didn’t live up to some fans’ expectations in this offseason. After a sloppy 2020 season, KT has almost completely rebuilt its LCK roster by signing a few players with LCK experience, as well as several rookies. Even though it’s admirable that KT is going for some young players with lots of potential, some fans are not happy about …
Peanut returns to the LCK 2021 with Team Dynamics
William Davis
League of Legends
Jungler Han “Peanut” Wang-ho is returning to the LCK after signing a two-year deal with Team Dynamics. Peanut is back in South Korea and has joined Team Dynamics as its starting jungler for 2021. Peanut returns after playing for a year with LGD Gaming in the LPL. 2020 was a good year for Peanut. LGD, a team that doesn’t usually achieve much domestically, snatched the fourth LPL seed to the …
Riot looking to nerf Kayle, Kayn, more on LoL patch 10.25
William Davis
League of Legends
Patch 10.25 is right around the corner and there will be a lot of changes to both champions and items once again. This patch will be the last of 2020 and Riot is therefore doing everything they can to balance out the game, which is currently in a shaky preseason state. There are a lot of bugs in the game at the moment and many champions are either sitting at …
Galeforce, Seraphine, more to be buffed on LoL patch 10.25
William Davis
League of Legends
The list of weak champions in the 2021 preseason is long, but luckily Riot will try to boost the power of most of them in the upcoming patch 10.25. As tanks and assassins have been dominating the preseason so far, some champions are close to unplayable when looking at their win rates. To make up for this, Riot will be buffing a lot of champions who are currently at a …
LS will no longer cast LCK, talks about almost coaching Faker
William Davis
League of Legends
The newly signed T1 content creator and LCK caster Nick “LS” Cesare has returned to streaming after a few weeks away from social media. On his return stream, LS talked about what has been going on behind the scenes with him and T1 over the past weeks and how he was actually accepted as a coach for the team by Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok himself. According to LS, he was originally …
Former Worlds champ Crown retires after Bjergsen, Doublelift
William Davis
League of Legends
Former Samsung Galaxy mid laner Lee “Crown” Min-ho has announced that he will retire from professional League of Legends. After more than five years as a professional player, Crown will step back from pro play after a year in the Korean challenger league. Crown made a name for himself in 2017 whe won the 2017 World Championship together with Samsung Galaxy. Crown will be another big name to retire in …
How much money is Perkz making at Cloud9 in the LCS?
William Davis
League of Legends
The 2021 League of Legends offseason has been the craziest in the history of the game, with Luka “Perkz” Perković going to Cloud9 as one of the biggest roster swap yet. Not a lot of fans would have expected the former G2 Esports mid and bot laner to join a team in the LCS, but now it has happened. Not only is Perkz one of the best players to ever …
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.
