League of Legends
League of Legends
LoL patch 10.8 brings big changes to the jungle, buffs solo kills
William Davis
League of Legends patch 10.8 has arrived! The most recent patch brings massive changes to the experience granted by kills and targets champions with the most presence in pro play. On the cosmetic side of the game, patch 10.8 adds Coven Morgana, Coven LeBlanc, Coven Zyra, and Coven Zyra Prestige Edition. All of the new skins will be available on April 16. Patch 10.8 has something for everyone, starting with …
League of Legends
Valorant anti-cheat could be a serious security risk for players
gabhernandez
Popular gaming and tech YouTuber Mutahar Anas, who runs the YouTube channel SomeOrdinaryGamers, has released a video about how Valorant’s anti-cheat engine could be a security or privacy risk to consumers. Riot created a new anti-cheat engine called Vanguard that must be installed in order to run the game. In the video, Anas claims that the game has a kernel anti-cheat drive, vgk.sys, that runs every time the player’s computer …
League of Legends
Valorant players debate if Raze is OP, shroud and summit weigh in
Olivia Richman
The Valorant closed beta has allowed people to get their hands on a lot of new agents, and players already have some very strong opinions. One of those new agents is Raze, whose ability kit revolves around dealing damage. Boom Bot allows Raze to deploy a small robot that travels in a straight line, locks onto an enemy and explode. This often acts as a distraction, making the opposing team …
League of Legends
League of Legends fans not impressed with ESPN2 LCS broadcast
Olivia Richman
League of Legends fans are coming together to voice their disdain for the League of Legends Spring Split playoffs airing on ESPN. Starting April 11, the Riot announced that all playoff games would be broadcast on ESPN2 going forward. While this seemed like a big move for esports during the ongoing lockdown and a chance to get more viewership, current fans were not happy with the games they’ve watched on …
League of Legends
Cloud9 annihilates Evil Geniuses, reaches 2020 LCS Spring finals
William Davis
Cloud9 defeated Evil Geniuses and is now heading to the finals of the 2020 LCS Spring Split. Evil Geniuses’ master plan failed in the semifinals against a Cloud9 that looks stronger by the minute. Cloud9, the perennial second-place team, is on the road to get its first title since 2014. Evil Geniuses was supposed to be a challenge for Cloud9, but the semifinals turned out to be a one-sided affair. …
League of Legends
Fnatic beats MAD Lions, qualifies for 2020 LEC Spring Split finals
William Davis
Fnatic secured a spot in the 2020 LEC Spring Split finals with a decisive victory over MAD Lions. Fnatic is the first team qualified for the finals in the LEC. On Saturday, the series in the upper bracket between Fnatic and MAD Lions was decided in three games. Fnatic walked away with the victory and will have to wait one week before knowing its final opponent for the season. Fnatic …
News
League of Legends players debate: Is saying “GG” now toxic?
Olivia Richman
Every League of Legends player has been there. The other team wins that big team fight, kills Baron, and your team is left retreating. It seems like a lost cause, so you type “GG” in the chat. You stop feeling so tense and decide you’re not going to push yourself when it’s a lost cause. This might be toxic behavior, according to some League of Legends players. The community came …
League of Legends
Valorant bans first cheater just after closed beta begins
Steven Rondina
Cheaters have already found their way to Valorant, and Riot Games has already started stamping them out. Valorant developers took to Twitter to discuss how they had issued the first ban in the game’s history to an unnamed player. “Well it sucks, but today we had to ban our first cheater, and it looks like more bans are on the horizon,” Riot anti-cheat lead designer Paul Chamberlain said. “I was …
Cloud9’s Reapered wins 2020 LCS Spring Coach of the Split award
William Davis
League of Legends
Cloud9’s Bok “Reapered” Han-gyu is the 2020 LCS Spring Coach of the Split. Cloud9 keeps collecting awards. After its players claimed every spot on the season’s All-Pro Team, it was Reapered’s turn to get recognition as Coach of the Split. Reapered is the coach with the most season awards in the LCS since the pivot to a franchising system. The Korean coach received this recognition previously in 2018 and then again …
LoL fans raise $6 million for charity through Riot Social Impact Fund
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot Games announced today that its latest in-game charity fundraiser collected $6 million for the Riot Games Social Impact Fund. Partnered with ImpactAssets, Riot Games formed the Social Impact Fund in 2019, a “unique philanthropic venture” that allows the League of Legends developer to make direct investments into a variety of global organizations “aimed at solving some of the world’s most pressing issues.” Riot Games head of karma (Social Impact) …
Valorant breaks viewership records on Twitch with beta key drops
gabhernandez
League of Legends
Valorant is off to a very, very strong start. April 7 saw the launch of the tactical shooter’s closed beta and fans looking for a beta key flooded Twitch streams in hopes of getting one. This saw Valorant shatter Twitch’s single-day viewership record within hours. The first-person shooter is anticipated by fans of a number of major esports titles including League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Overwatch. Valorant set …
TSM edges past 100 Thieves in lower bracket of LCS Spring playoff
William Davis
League of Legends
Team SoloMid defeated 100 Thieves and is advancing to round two of playoffs in the 2020 LCS Spring Split. TSM knocked 100 Thieves out of playoffs after five games. The action-packed series was so close that it all came down to a single play in game five. 100 Thieves had a rough start in the playoffs against Cloud9 and had a second chance against TSM. TSM started its playoffs run …
LoL and Valorant are now the most watched games on Twitch
William Davis
League of Legends
Valorant is breaking viewership records after only one day in its closed beta. Hours into its debut, the newest title by Riot Games broke Twitch’s single-day hours watched record for a single game. Valorant registered a 1.7 million concurrent viewer peak, dethroning Fortnite’s World Cup for second place in the streaming platform’s history. The number one spot is occupied by the 2019 League of Legends World Championship, which had 1.74 …
The LCS playoffs are coming to television on ESPN
William Davis
League of Legends
The remainder of the 2020 LCS Spring Split playoffs will be broadcast on ESPN television networks, the LCS revealed through Twitter. Starting on April 11, the LCS games are coming to ESPN2. The deal will run through April 19 when the LCS will crown a new spring champion. The full schedule goes as follow: April 11, Evil Geniuses vs. Cloud9, 3pm CT April 12, FlyQuest vs. Team SoloMid, 3pm CT …
Tfue calls Valorant “boring,” says it’s a game for “old people”
Olivia Richman
News
More negative reviews are coming in for Valorant, Riot’s new FPS title. The closed beta for Valorant has begun, allowing more pro gamers and streamers to get their hands on the game and make their opinions known to their followers. The latest content creator to have a strong opinion on Valorant is Turner “Tfue” Tenney. The Fortnite star wasn’t too excited about the gameplay. In fact, he said that he …
Riot dispels myths about Valorant key drops, cracks down on sellers
gabhernandez
League of Legends
Today, Riot Games released a blog post discussing the launch of Valorant’s closed beta, and what the company has learned from day one. The closed beta period has begun for Riot’s new shooter, and everyone is itching to get their hands on the game. To get into the beta, players need to follow three simple steps: Sign up for a Riot account Link that account with a Twitch account Watch …
WildTurtle on TL missing LCS Spring playoffs: “That’s inexcusable”
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
FlyQuest had quite the convincing win over Golden Guardians in the 2020 LCS Spring Split playoffs. The 3-0 victory knocked GG out in the quarterfinals, ending their season. Now, FlyQuest are waiting to see who they will face in the semifinals this weekend. WIN.gg spoke with Jason “WildTurtle” Tran over Discord after the match to find out what has made them such a strong team and how they think they …
What is Valorant? Everything you need to know about Riot’s shooter
Steven Rondina
League of Legends
Valve and Riot Games have had a rivalry for almost a decade now, but while that rivalry has largely played out between their respective MOBA titles, things are starting to heat up even more. That’s because Riot Games is set to release its own tactical shooter, Valorant. Valorant is Riot’s answer to the longtime king of the genre, Counter-Strike, and it’s a game that already has huge momentum behind it. …
Dr. Disrespect disses Valorant, calls new FPS “hard to watch”
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Per usual, Dr. Disrespect has something to say. On a recent stream, Twitch personality Herschel “Dr. Disrespect” Beahm IV gave his early opinion on Riot’s new FPS, Valorant. To no one’s surprise, he had some harsh words. Apparently, he wasn’t too fond of the new game from what he’s seen. “Even as a brand new game, it only took me a couple rounds to go, ‘Okay, this is it. And …
LCK set to enter new franchise team model in 2021
William Davis
League of Legends
The LCK is officially franchising in 2021. Riot Games Korea has announced its plan to adopt a franchise model in 2021. The LCK is the fourth and final major region to transition into a long-term partnership with competing teams and organizations. Organizations interested in taking part in the new league will have to submit a business plan, a team operation plan, and a fundraising plan. Teams must detail things like …
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
FQ igNar on potential LCS final vs Cloud9: “I think we can beat them.”
By
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Team SoloMid knocked out of 2020 LCS Spring playoffs by FlyQuest
By
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports survives in 2020 LEC playoffs, eliminates Origen
By
Nina Forneloza
