League of Legends
League of Legends
How to place vision wards like a pro in League of Legends
William Davis
The goal in League of Legends is very simple: Storm into the enemy’s base and destroy their nexus. Things start getting more complicated when players have to deal with wave management, map rotations, and vision control. Placing wards is not just something you always have to consider if your lane is being camped by an enemy jungler. No, vision control is a necessary skill for every player on the map. …
League of Legends
You won’t believe your eyes when you see Sneaky’s new cosplay
Olivia Richman
Cloud9 is already hot and bothered over Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi’s newest cosplay. The veteran AD Carry may no longer be on Cloud9’s roster, but he is still clearly on the organization’s mind thanks to his increasingly sultry cosplays. The top LCS team shot its traditional “you’re so hot brother” tweet at Sneaky after he posted two eye-popping photos of his most recent cosplay. Sporting a bubble gum pink wig, a …
News
Is Team Liquid better now that Doublelift is off to TSM?
William Davis
Three weeks into the 2020 LCS Summer Split, it’s time to make a balance of Team Liquid’s season and how the team is faring without Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng. On April 26, Team SoloMid confirmed that Doublelift would be rejoining the organization as the starting ADC. It wasn’t a surprise, the rumors about this move started flying around by the end of spring’s regular season where Liquid finished ninth. Losing Doublelift …
League of Legends
100 Thieves drops Stunt, may also move Meteos from LCS roster
William Davis
100 Thieves fans are witnessing some serious dramatics with the roster changes announced by the team. Right after its defeat to Team SoloMid, 100 Thieves announced a drastic roster move. Jungler William “Meteos” Hartman and support William “Stunt” Chen are to be replaced by Juan “Contractz” Garcia and Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere, respectively. Next week for LCS, @poomelol and @Contractz will be our starting Support and Jungle, respectively. We’ll share a …
League of Legends
Team Liquid vs. Dignitas: 2020 LCS Summer Split betting analysis
William Davis
On Saturday, Dignitas will look to pick up its first victory of the split against Team Liquid. In the spring, Dignitas had a better performance and managed to take one win from Liquid. In the summer, the tables have turned and Liquid is looking much stronger. Top lane: Omran “V1per” Shoura Jungle: Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham Mid lane: Henrik “Froggen” Hansen ADC: Johnson “Johnsun” Nguyen Support: Zaqueri “aphromoo” Black Ahead of …
League of Legends
Immortals cuts ties with LCS head coach Zaboutine, general manager
William Davis
Immortals has made a drastic change ahead of week three of the 2020 LCS Summer Split. The organization revealed onTwitter that it has parted ways with LCS General Manager Keaton Cryer and head coach Thomas “Zaboutine” Si-Hassen. The decision comes after a poor, 0-4 start to the split. Thank you, @KeatonNA, and @Zaboutine. pic.twitter.com/1k9a9qGqEE — Immortals (@Immortals) June 25, 2020 “I don’t think this is the time to make speeches, …
League of Legends
Battlecast gets buff in TFT patch 10.13 after sorry debut
William Davis
Teamfight Tactics patch 10.13 brings some significant adjustments to the game mode’s newest traits and champions. The mid-set update added Battlecast and Astro as the new traits in TFT: Galaxies. Right off the bat, these traits proved to be strong and became an essential part of the meta. In comparison, Astro is performing better than Battlecast thanks to the Yordle we all love to hate, Teemo. Path 10.13 addresses the …
League of Legends
Pokémon UNITE looks like a MOBA, is inspired by League of Legends
Olivia Richman
“You may think you know Pokémon…but you’ve never seen a battle like this!” Earlier today, Pokemon released a teaser trailer for a new game. But this time it’s not about collecting Pokemon or using them to battle other trainers. Instead it’s a 5-on-5 real-time strategic battle game starring Pokemon from a variety of generations, including Pikachu, Charizard, Blastoise, Snorlax, Lucario, Gengar, Clefable, and Machamp. The League of Legends-style MOBA game …
This nerf to Yuumi will shut her down after LoL patch 10.13
William Davis
League of Legends
LoL patch 10.13 is heading to the live server with a necessary nerf for Yuumi, new Pool Party skins, and an update to report options. Summer will arrive in League of Legends on July 2 with five new Pool Party skins. Pool Party Jarvan IV, Pool Party Orianna, Pool Party Taliyah, Pool Party Syndra, and Pool Party Heimerdinger are the newest additions to the skin line. Each skin will sell …
Explaining the 2020 Summer Split watch rewards, drops, missions
William Davis
League of Legends
The Summer Split has officially started and the LoL watch rewards are back and better than ever before. Fans that watch professional play, no matter the region of the games watched, can opt in for exclusive LoL watch rewards. The watch missions are split into four tiers, and each tier has its own requirements and rewards. Tier one: Watch one game, earn a Hextech key, and a Hextech chest. Tier …
Riot won’t remove Little Legends from ARAM after refund dispute
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is going back on its decision to remove Little Legends from ARAM, game director Andrei “Meddler” van Roon revealed on Twitter. On June 19, Riot shared its plans to remove Little Legends from ARAM with patch 10.15. According to the announcement, Little Legends ruin the visual clarity of the game and not many players were interested in buying these characters specifically for ARAM. On top of that, following …
These are the big changes coming to the LoL item shop
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is planning on big changes for League of Legends in the offseason, and those changes start with the in-game item shop. Players will get to see a new item shop once the offseason rolls around November. According to an update by Riot, this change will address issues including multiple items having similar purposes, a lack of game-to-game variance in item builds, and the entire interface needing improvement. In …
C9 Jack calls out LCS for bad Player of the Week awards
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9 owner Jack Etienne is not happy with the Player of the Week awards in the 2020 LCS Summer Split. At the end of the weekend’s LCS broadcast, FlyQuest jungler Lucas “Santorin” Larsen received the Player of the Week award. FlyQuest finished the weekend with two victories and is now tied in second place with Evil Geniuses, Counter Logic Gaming, and Team Liquid. In week one, the award went to …
Invictus Gaming becomes first LoL team to score 10,000 kills
William Davis
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming is the first team ever to reach 10,000 kills in official matches, with over 20% of those kills coming from one player. In 2018, Invictus Gaming became the first LPL team to win a World Championship title. This year, IG became the first team to ever get 10,000 kills. Mid laner Song “Rookie” Eui-jin is responsible for over 2,000 of those kills. Rookie is the second player to …
Team Liquid coach Jatt has “a love-hate relationship with pressure”
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
After all of the drama and the many losses last season, Team Liquid finished in a miserable ninth place after multiple consecutive LCS titles. When Team Liquid announced former League of Legends commentator Joshua “Jatt” Leesman would be their new head coach, many fans wondered if he’d have the right skills to bring the flailing team back to their former glory. After a loss to Evil Geniuses in Week 2, Team …
Riot is building a “good behavior island” to deal with toxicity
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot Games appears to be attempting to patent a “good behavior island” for League of Legends players based on activity at the US Patent and Trademark Office. According to the patent submitted by Riot, the game developer is looking to reward positive players with improved matchmaking. This is a different take on Dota 2’s “low priorty queue,” often called Prison Island, which essentially quarantines toxic players together away from the …
Riot to make LoL Eternals more accessible as free drops, rewards
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot has made Eternals more accessible by making them free drops in event missions and while climbing the ranked ladder. Eternals are defined as champion-specific stat-trackers that “capture, celebrate, and flex your moments of glory in and out of game.” With Eternals, players can track their per-game personal bests, rack up lifetime milestones for certain achievements, and show off their favorite champions’ accomplishments. Eternals were previously only available by purchasing …
TSM vs. FlyQuest: 2020 LCS Summer Split betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
On Saturday, Team SoloMid and FlyQuest meet for the first time in the 2020 LCS Summer Split. TSM and FlyQuest are tied in fourth place alongside Counter Logic Gaming and Golden Guardians with one victory and one loss. Top lane, Sergen “Broken Blade” Çelik Jungle, Mingyi “Spica” Lu Mid lane, Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg ADC, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng Support, Vincent “Biofrost” Wang In the offseason, TSM secured the pieces to go …
Riot addresses criticism of LCS broadcasts, promises improvements
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The League of Legends community has been noticing a lot of issues with LCS broadcasts this year, and Riot has finally responded to growing criticism. Working, broadcasting, and streaming remotely has been a challenge in 2020, but Riot seems to understand that they can definitely be doing better after complaints began to add up during the 2020 LCS Spring Split. In a recent press release, Riot explained that they were …
G2 Esports vs FC Schalke 04: 2020 LEC Summer betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports and FC Schalke 04 are meeting in Week 2 of the 2020 LEC Summer Split. This is not the usual one-sided match where G2 is expected to destroy the competition in 25 minutes. Somehow, Schalke always finds a way to get a few punches in and annoy G2. In the spring, a winless Schalke squad managed to get a victory against first-place G2, and there’s a chance it …
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.
