League of Legends
League of Legends
Everything you need to know about China’s top seed, Top Esports
Jared Wynne
Top Esports was the first LPL team to qualify for the 2020 World Championships after winning the 2020 LPL Summer Split Playoffs. Professional League of Legends fans know that the LPL is the strongest region in the world today, but they might not be as familiar with Top Esports as they are with the more popular teams such as Invictus Gaming, LGD Gaming, or Funplus Phoenix. Top Esports has dominated …
League of Legends
G2 vs Fnatic in LEC playoffs peaks at almost 900,000 viewers
William Davis
The upper bracket final LEC playoffs match between G2 Esports and Fnatic ended in a five-game nailbiter that drew almost 900,000 concurrent viewers at its peak. According to Echarts, the series the all-time LEC & EU LCS viewership record, which shows how popular the league has become among League of Legends fans. The peak viewership reached 898,643 unique viewers. The average viewers throughout the 2020 LEC Summer Split sat at …
League of Legends
Team SoloMid takes out Cloud9, secures spot in LoL Worlds 2020
William Davis
It was all or nothing for two of the biggest organizations in the LCS, but Team SoloMid ended up securing itself the last North American spot in the 2020 League of Legends World Championship. TSM vs. Cloud9 has been a matchup that historically delivers for fans, and this one was no exception. Both teams were recently knocked down to the lower bracket of the 2020 LCS Summer Split playoffs, which …
League of Legends
MAD Lions ends Schalke miracle run in LEC, qualify for LoL Worlds
William Davis
It was do or die for MAD Lions and FC Schalke 04 in the 2020 LEC Summer Split playoffs, but MAD Lions came out on top with a 3-1 victory. The miracle run of Schalke added extra intrigue to the match, which saw the underdog squad come within one match of qualifying for the 2020 League of Legends World Championship. The match was no less important for MAD Lions though, …
League of Legends
G2 Esports vs. Fnatic: 2020 LEC playoffs betting analysis
William Davis
G2 Esports and Fnatic will fight for the top spot in the 2020 LEC Summer Split finals in a clash between the two most successful European organizations in League of Legends. It’s a matchup that we have seen many times in recent years, and it always delivers. In 2019 the teams met in the summer finals, where G2 won after five close games. This was followed up by a rematch …
League of Legends
Top Esports wins 2020 LPL Summer Split final in five wild games
William Davis
Top Esports has won its first LPL trophy after defeating JD Gaming in an intense final that went the full five games. It was a rematch between Top Esports and JD Gaming that would see the summer split victors and the LPL first seed for the 2020 World Championship decided. The two teams also met each other in the spring finals, where JD Gaming came out on top after another …
League of Legends
MAD Lions vs. FC Schalke 04 LEC playoffs betting analysis
William Davis
It’s time to find the last European team that will qualify for the 2020 World Championship, and it will be either MAD Lions or miracle team FC Schalke 04. MAD Lions has been a dominating force throughout the 2020 LEC Summer Split, but has fallen off in recent weeks. The team took a bad loss to G2 Esports and are now fighting in the lower bracket where no more missteps …
League of Legends
League of Legends players discover hidden PsyOps missions
William Davis
The new PsyOps skin line was recently announced by Riot Games, but now players have discovered hidden in-game missions that grant a new icon, a Hextech key, and a chest. While the PsyOps skins are not yet on the live servers, players can already get a sneak peek at some of the new PsyOps missions, which might come along with a new in-game event in an upcoming patch. The new …
Labrov wins LEC Summer 2020 rookie award, Mac is top coach
William Davis
League of Legends
The rookie and coach of the split awards have been revealed for the 2020 LEC Summer Split as we move into the last weeks of the playoffs. The votes went in favor of Team Vitality’s Labros “Labrov” Papoutsakis for rookie of the split, while James “Mac” MacCormack won the coach of the split. Both awards were highly competitive this split, but rookie of the split especially had several players who …
Riot wants to squash Sett in patch 10.18, Twitch gets buffs
William Davis
League of Legends
We are getting close to the 2020 World Championship, which means that Riot Games will be tweaking a few of the strongest and weakest champions in the game for patch 10.18. Lead gameplay designer for League of Legends Mark “Scuffy” Yetter recently released a detailed preview of the patch, where a few awaited nerfs are showing up. Riot will also likely be buffing some champions that have fallen far out …
LoL Worlds 2020 schedule, location, and format revealed
William Davis
League of Legends
The schedule for the 2020 League of Legends World Championship was revealed during a Tencent Esports conference. The tournament will be held in a bubble format, instead of the previous plans where Worlds would travel around China to some of its major cities. The bubble format means that the tournament will be held in the same place, without players needing to travel to different locations and risking health issues. Worlds …
Riot makes competitive ruling on Greek match manipulation case
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games has issued a competitive ruling against four players from the Greek Legends League, a top League of Legends competition in Greece, for manipulating match results during the 2019 Winter Split and 2020 Spring Split. The four involved players are Grigoris “Kobazz” Kovalegos, Panagiotis “Tython” Kobothekras, Thanasis “Tanacee” Vlahogiannis, and Vaios “Lunny” Dimzas, each of whom was found guilty in colluding to manipulate match results with the sole intent …
Fnatic is going to Worlds 2020, but what happened to Rogue?
William Davis
League of Legends
Fnatic took down first-seed Rogue convincingly in the 2020 LEC Summer Split playoffs upper bracket. The summer split has been rough for Fnatic, struggling to find consistency in its most important matches. Fnatic finally woke up when it really mattered, as they met Rogue in the upper bracket. Not only did Fnatic win, they also did it in a convincing 3-0 fashion, something that even Fnatic fans did not expect. …
Why is LCK the fastest region in LoL while the LCS is slowest?
William Davis
League of Legends
The LCK is the fastest region out of all four major regions in average game duration in the 2020 Summer Split. The overall game time from all regions has been faster in season 10 when compared to previous years. This is due to the meta being faster, and the fact that Riot has added turret platings, elemental drakes, and other things that make teams snowball the game more easily after …
New visual effects for Malzahar, Nocturne, Victor in patch 10.18
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot is looking to update the visual effects on Malzahar, Nocturne, Viktor, and the Ignite summoner spell in patch 10.18. In a recent post on social media by visual effects lead artist Beardilocks, it was announced that the visual effects team is looking to update a few more of the oldest champions in the game. The goal is to improve the overall gameplay clarity and VFX of the selected champions …
K/DA to premiere new song The Baddest, release date announced
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
K/DA is making a comeback. League of Legends’ virtual K-pop girl group is set for a return in the very near future. After an extended silence over the future of the brand, Riot Games surprised fans by launching an official Twitter account for K/DA. The initial tweet gave fans that still have POP/STARS on their go-to playlist a treat with the announcement of a second single, which will be released …
Is Cloud9 tilting after LCS summer playoffs loss to FlyQuest?
William Davis
League of Legends
It did not go as planned for Cloud9 when the team met FlyQuest in the upper bracket of the 2020 LCS Summer Split playoffs. C9 went into the match as the heavy favorite, but the pressure seemingly got to them right from the start. C9 has been used to dominating the LCS for all of 2020, but recent weeks have shown that other teams are now more able to compete. …
DAMWON Gaming could be the biggest threat to LPL teams at Worlds
William Davis
League of Legends
DAMWON Gaming has been dominating the 2020 LCK Summer Split and is currently sitting in first place with the league’s best overall record. But will they have enough to challenge the top LPL teams at the upcoming world championship? DAMWON started out the summer split well, but with a few teams still ahead of them in the standings. Going into week 5, DAMWON found its momentum and suddenly no team …
Is TSM replacing Treatz with Biofrost for Golden Guardians set?
William Davis
League of Legends
After Team SoloMid dropped to the lower bracket in the 2020 LCS Summer Split playoffs, the team has seemingly been evaluating their bottom lane once again. TSM recently announced on Twitter that Erik “Treatz” Wessén will be the starting support for the academy team when they face Evil Geniuses Academy in the summer split semifinals. Vincent “Biofrost” Wang will be scrimming with the LCS roster in the meantime. According to …
G2 Esports vs. MAD Lions: 2020 LEC playoffs betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports and MAD Lions will clash in the winner’s bracket round 1 at the 2020 LEC Summer Split playoffs on Saturday, in an important match to decide qualification directly to the semifinals. MAD Lions performed well throughout most of the split, finishing in second place right behind Rogue. MAD Lions has shown that they can beat any given LEC team on the right day. G2 on the other hand …
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.
