League of Legends
League of Legends
Is ADC now the worst role in League of Legends?
William Davis
In League of Legends, the meta for the ADC has changed through the years. Right now, solo queue players claim that the role is unplayable. While it’s a bit of an exaggeration, players have reason to complain about the current state of the role. According to the League of Legends wiki, marksmen are “ranged champions whose power almost exclusively revolves around their basic attacks: using their reach to land massive …
League of Legends
FunPlus Phoenix vs. EDward Gaming in 2020 LPL Spring playoffs betting analysis
William Davis
2019 World Champion FunPlus Phoenix is facing Edward Gaming in the 2020 LPL Spring Split playoffs. This match will decide who’s advancing in the bracket to face JD Gaming in semifinals. FPX are the unlikely heroes of the LPL, as they redefined what teamwork really means and earned a World Championship title by playing a unique style. EDG is trying to go back to its former glory and another LPL …
League of Legends
Team Liquid set to return Doublelift to Team SoloMid in huge LCS trade
William Davis
Team Liquid is about to close a deal that will see bottom laner Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng return to Team SoloMid, ESPN’s Jacob Wolf reported. Earlier this month, it transpired that Team Liquid put Doublelift’s contract up for trade ahead of the 2020 LCS Summer Split. According to the report by ESPN, multiple teams were interested in the contract, but Doublelift himself ultimately chose to go back to TSM. This has …
League of Legends
Riot Games is reportedly canceling the 2020 Mid-Season Invitational
Olivia Richman
There’s a rumor going around that this year’s Mid-Summer Invitational won’t be happening after all. On an episode of Hotline League, esports personality Mark “MarkZ” Zimmerman, Cloud9 midlaner Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer, and League of Legends journalist Travis Gafford were discussing the crazy LCS spring season when Gafford dropped quite a bombshell on his co-hosts. “I’m going to drop a rumor here. This will come as no surprise to anybody. The rumor, I’m …
T1 favored vs. DragonX in 2020 LCK spring semifinals match predictions
William Davis
League of Legends
T1 and DragonX will clash in round three of the playoffs in the 2020 LCK Spring split. The LCK still uses a single-elimination format, so teams only get one chance to advance in the bracket. The winner from this round is advancing to finals, where Gen.G has been waiting since the end of the regular season. Kim “Canna” Chang-dong Moon “Cuzz” Woo-chan – Choi “Ellim” El-lim Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok Park …
Cloud9 break LCS trophy after LCS Spring Split 2020 finals victory
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Lifting up the LCS champion trophy inside your apartment is apparently not the same as lifting it up on the LCS Arena stage. After defeating FlyQuest in the Spring Split 2020 Finals, Cloud9 became the Spring Split champions. After a 17-1 regular season record, this didn’t really come as a surprise to anyone. In fact, other teams were even avoiding scrimming with the squad since they were “shitting on” the …
C9’s Vulcan: “It’s hard to blame teams for not scrimming against us”
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Cloud9 are the 2020 LCS Spring Split champions. A 3-0 win over FlyQuest in the Finals saw them take the title that had been evading them for so many years. With a 17-1 record during the season, it isn’t too surprising when Cloud9 managed to take the championship. It was still an emotional moment to see the team jump out of their chairs and hug after the victory, though. It’s …
Cloud9 destroys FlyQuest, wins 2020 LCS Spring Split championship
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9 is the 2020 LCS Spring Split champion. Cloud9 dominated FlyQuest in the LCS finals and earned its first championship title since 2014. The team closed the series in three games to complete the best split in the history of the LCS. FlyQuest fought hard through the lower bracket, but it wasn’t enough to stop Cloud9. 7 FINALS. 6 2ND PLACES. 1 TITLE.AFTER 6 YEARS, CLOUD9 ARE THE 2020 #LCS …
Doublelift bashes LCS teams, calls them “snowflakes” for being scared to lose
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Not one to shy away from smack talk no matter the situation, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng called out LCS teams for their poor mentality during a stream with an LCK commentator. Team Liquid may have finished in 9th place in the LCS, but Doublelift still had harsh words for the other teams competing in North America after he heard Cloud9’s Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme admit in an interview that other teams didn’t …
G2 Esports topples Fnatic, wins 2020 LEC Spring Split championship
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports is the 2020 LEC Spring Split champion. G2 took home its seventh LEC title with a convincing, dominant performance over Fnatic in the finals. What people expected to be a close series, ended up being a stomp by G2. ???? pic.twitter.com/zFyfViNzPY — LEC (@LEC) April 19, 2020 The G2 reign started in 2019 when the team signed mid laner Rasmus “Caps” Winther. That single decision changed the LEC …
Match predictions for Cloud9 versus FlyQuest in 2020 LCS Spring finals
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9 and FlyQuest are meeting in the 2020 LCS Spring finals. For the first time since the franchising, the LCS will have a champion that is not Team Liquid who, finished the regular season in ninth place. The 2020 #LCS Spring Finals are set! @Cloud9 look for their first title since 2014 against a @FlyQuest team making their first #LCS Finals appearance! #LCS Countdown begins tomorrow at 12:30PM PDT / …
FlyQuest’s Santorin says beating EG “feels like another day of scrims”
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Given how FlyQuest played today, fans will likely be surprised to know Lucas “Santorin” Kilmer Larsen was under the weather. Despite that, his team dominated Evil Geniuses in the 2020 LCS Spring Split semifinals, setting them up with a trip to the finals to face Cloud9. WIN.gg spoke with Santorin after the 3-1 victory, discussing their chances tomorrow, how they think they’d fair against other regions at MSI, and even …
Cloud9’s Blaber takes home 2020 LCS Spring Split MVP award
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9’s jungler Robert “Blaber” Huang is the 2020 LCS Spring Split MVP. Cloud9 collected its final award of the season. Cloud9 claimed all the spots in the All-Pro Team and the Coach of the Split award. The jungler is receiving the most important award of the split in his first as a starter. This is confirmation that Blaber is, in fact, LCS material. In the offseason, Cloud9 and Blaber received …
FunPlus Phoenix World Championship skins are getting mixed reviews
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games revealed the World Championship skins for FunPlus Phoenix and the community is not fully sold on the concept. FunPlus Phoenix took the 2019 World Championship by storm, becoming the third Chinese team to win the event. There were a lot of discussions about which champion the players would pick for their custom in-game skins. It went as follows: Kim “GimGoon” Han-saem, Gangplank Gao “Tian” Tian-Liang, Lee Sin Kim …
Team Liquid reportedly puts Doublelift’s contract up for trade
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Multiple sources close to the situation have revealed that Team Liquid has put Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng’s contract up for trade. While Team Liquid hasn’t announced the big move themselves, League of Legends journalist and content creator Travis Gafford has come forward with the news after hearing about it from multiple sources. According to Gafford, multiple teams have informed him that Doublelift is up for sale and will likely be traded …
TFT patch 10.8 adds new galaxies and gives a massive buff to Soraka
William Davis
League of Legends
Teamfight Tactics deployed patch 10.8 and it brings new units and new galaxies. The highlight of patch 10.8 is the addition of Xerath, the first unit added to the game since the release of TFT: Galaxies. Xerath Tier 5 Dark Star-Sorcerer Abyssal Bombardment: Xerath summons random meteor strikes for 6/8/45 seconds. Meteors deal magic damage, if they kill an enemy, adjacents enemies take damage and get stunned for 1.5 seconds. …
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
Faker ice cream is now available, comes in three godly flavors
By
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The real reason why JackeyLove almost missed the LPL Spring Split
By
William Davis
League of Legends
LoL patch 10.9 buffs Gnar, nerfs Nami, adds FPX Championship skins
By
William Davis
League of Legends
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