League of Legends
League of Legends
C9 Jack calls out LCS for bad Player of the Week awards
William Davis
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 …
League of Legends
Invictus Gaming becomes first LoL team to score 10,000 kills
William Davis
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 …
League of Legends
Team Liquid coach Jatt has “a love-hate relationship with pressure”
Olivia Richman
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 …
League of Legends
Riot is building a “good behavior island” to deal with toxicity
Olivia Richman
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 …
League of Legends
G2 Esports vs FC Schalke 04: 2020 LEC Summer betting analysis
William Davis
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
T1 extends contract with Teddy ahead of franchising in LCK
William Davis
T1 is getting ready for franchising in the LCK and has extended a key player’s contract through 2022. ADC extraordinaire Park “Teddy” Jin-seong has signed a two-year contract extension with T1. The deal comes just in time for the start of the 2020 LCK Summer Split where T1 is fighting for its fourth consecutive LCK title. “I wanted to sign Teddy because he’s the best ADC in the world. He’s …
News
SANDBOX Gaming coach YamatoCannon gets visa, heads to Korea
William Davis
SANDBOX Gaming’s new head coach Jakob “YamatoCannon” Mebdi is on his way to South Korea after getting his visa approved. YamatoCannon, the first European coach to join an LCK organization, is ready to join the team in Seoul just in time for the start of the 2020 LCK Summer split. My VISA is approved and I fly in less then 24 hours. I’ll miss our game against Afreeca but I’ll …
League of Legends
Everything you need to know about LoL’s dragons and drakes
William Davis
League of Legends Season 10 introduced the elemental rift, a map that changes based on the dragons that spawn on the map. The third dragon spawn of the game determines the map for the remainder of the match. Halfway through Season 10, some players are still confused about the buffs granted by each dragon, the priority given to each soul, and when’s the best time to go for them. In …
Team Liquid beats Doublelift and TSM to start LCS Summer Split
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Team Liquid started the Summer Split with a convincing win over TSM. The four-time LCS season champions came into the Summer Split with something to prove. After placing ninth in the Spring Split, it became quite clear that some things had to change. The first was dropping their long-time Leauge of Legends coach Kang “Dodo” Jun-hyeok, who Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng had accused of poor communication. The organization then dropped Doublelift, …
TSM names Parth head coach at Doublelift and Bjergsen’s request
William Davis
League of Legends
Team SoloMid has reinstated Parth Naidu as its LCS head coach, the organization announced just one day before its debut in the 2020 LCS Summer Split. TSM is really going for a throwback feel with Parth as the team’s head coach. Peter Zhang will return to TSM Academy and share coaching duties there with Joshua Mabrey. According to the announcement, newly signed AD carry Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, along with mid …
Riot fires Ron Johnson for insensitive comments on George Floyd
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
After a few days of deliberation, Riot Games has fired Ron Johnson, the company’s global head of consumer products, over racially insensitive remarks regarding George Floyd. The League of Legends developers announced the news in a press release, shared by esports insider Rod “Slasher” Breslau on Twitter. In the statement, Riot calls Johnson’s remarks “abhorent,” claiming the words “directly counter” the company’s values and beliefs. “As we shared last week, …
Dignitas starts with Akaadian over Dardoch for LCS Week 1 matches
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Joshua “Dardoch” Harnett is having a rough start to the Summer Split. Dignitas took to Twitter to reveal their starting roster for the opening week of the 2020 LCS Summer Split. Dardoch wasn’t in the accompanying picture, replaced instead by jungler Matthew “Akaadian” Higginbotham. The starting roster also included Omran “V1per” Shoura in the top lane, with mid laner Henrik “Froggen” Hansen, ADC Johnson “Jonhsun” Nguyen, and Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black …
G2 Esports vs MAD Lions: 2020 LEC Summer Split betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports and MAD Lions are playing in week one of the 2020 LEC Summer Split in a rematch of the spring semifinals. In its first split in the LEC, MAD achieved the unthinkable. The Spanish team took down G2 in the playoffs, forcing it to play from the loser’s bracket. G2 gained momentum in the lower bracket and when it was time for a rematch, MAD didn’t stand a …
Team Liquid vs TSM: 2020 LCS Summer Split betting analysis
William Davis
League of Legends
LCS fans won’t have to wait long for the clash between Team Liquid and Team SoloMid. Two of the most popular teams in North America will meet in week one of the 2020 LCS Summer split. The offseason was all about Liquid and TSM because of the transfer of AD carry Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng from Liquid, where he had won four consecutive LCS splits, to TSM. It was a controversial …
TFT Galaxies mid-set patch 10.12 adds new traits, updates TFT Mobile
William Davis
League of Legends
The highly anticipated TFT: Galaxies mid-set update is live with TFT patch 10.12, and it brings changes to every single element in the game. This is the only content update for TFT: Galaxies, so from now until the new set there won’t be new champions or traits. The mid-set update also includes Lightcharger, Nixie and Bellswayer, a trio of Little Legends. Galaxies Ranked Stage two has officially started with patch …
Riot Games investigates executive over problematic George Floyd post
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
A Riot Games executive has been placed on leave after problematic social media posts were unearthed. Vice reported on a series of social media posts byRon Johnson, Riot’s global head of consumer products. Among them was a meme accompanied by a post that suggested the death of George Floyd was due to his “criminal lifestyle.” “There is no reason to condone his killing by the officer at all, which still …
Riot Games plans on big penalties for AFK players in solo queue
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games is planning on giving harsher punishment to AFK players, the developer revealed in a recent update on fighting against game-ruining behavior. Back in May, Riot shared its plan to stop the game-ruining behavior in solo queue. After a month of research and the deploying of some small fixes to solo queue, Riot is starting to reconsider its penalty system. “Our penalties for AFKing rely too much on queue …
Akali and ADC Senna just got big buffs in League’s latest patch
William Davis
League of Legends
League of Legends patch 10.12 has arrived with new elements on the map, buffs for Volibear, and new high noon skins. High Noon Senna, High Noon Irelia, and Hextech Nocturne will be available on June 18. High Noon Senna is the first skin line the Redeemer shares with her husband, Lucian. The reworked Volibear arrived at the Summoner’s Rift with patch 10.11 and has been underperforming ever since. Volibear’s win …
100 Thieves Ssumday, CodySun, Ryoma talk challenges, goals for summer
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
100 Thieves surprised a lot of LCS viewers by placing third. But that wasn’t enough to keep the team happy. Chan-ho “Ssumday” Kim, Li-Yu “Cody Sun” Sun, and Tommy “Ryoma” Lee all expressed disappointment in their LCS Spring Split performance when talking to WIN.gg. Looking forward to the Summer Split, all three players believe there will be further improvements ahead. But the big question remains: Will they be able to …
C9 Zven: “The only other team that’s somewhat good is Team Liquid.”
Olivia Richman
News
It’s no surprise that Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen is feeling cofident going into the 2020 LCS Summer Split. Cloud9 had an almost flawless Spring Split, with no other North American teams even coming close to knocking them out of the top spot. But with Worlds on the line, Zven and his teammates are determined to stay on top of their game. WIN.gg spoke with the Spring Split champion about threats to …
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.
