League of Legends
League of Legends
Counter Logic Gaming drops Crown after poor performance
Olivia Richman
After a difficult start to the LCS Spring Split, Counter Logic Gaming have announced that Lee “Crown” Min-ho is now a free agent. Counter Logic Gaming spent the first six weeks of the season in last place, with an unfortunate 2-10 record. The poor showing put pressure on the players, who began to underperform even more as they struggled to prove themselves. One of the biggest disappointments, though, was Crown. Despite …
League of Legends
Riot reveals key details on TFT: Galaxies’ new gameplay, Pass+
William Davis
The release of Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies is fast approaching and Riot Games has shared new information about the set. TFT: Galaxies is the next update for the autobattler. The new, space-themed set will include new traits and characters. On top of that, Riot is improving the rewards, gameplay, and even the Little Legends system. The developers took everything they learned from the first two sets, to improve TFT: Galaxies. According …
League of Legends
Doublelift benched from LCS by Team Liquid due to motivation
William Davis
Team Liquid’s Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng is benched due to motivation problems, the bottom laner confirmed the situation through Twitter. Liquid has decided to bench Doublelift for the foreseeable future. Co-CEO Steve Arhancet said on Twitter that the team is evaluating the situation week to week, but for now Edward “Tactical” Ra is the starter. Liquid signed Richard “Rikara” Oh as the new bottom laner for Team Liquid Academy, so Tactical …
League of Legends
League of Legends says final farewell to its community boards
Olivia Richman
League of Legends players have just a few more days to use the game’s official boards before they close on March 9. The boards are a platform where League of Legends players and fans could voice their opinions on various elements of the game, similar to a Reddit forum. The boards were also used by Riot to share updates and game changes with players. But after a decade of service, …
League of Legends
Project A leaked images reveal first first character, abilities
William Davis
An anonymous source has leaked what appears to be images of Riot Games’ Project A, the developer’s first shooter title. In early February, Riot hosted a closed alpha in its office in Dublin, Ireland. A small group of players had a chance to get their hands on Project A and the feedback was positive. Former professional Counter-Strike player Henry “HenryG” Greer said that Project A is the best game since …
League of Legends
Team Liquid beats Team SoloMid without Doublelift in 2020 LCS Spring
William Davis
Team Liquid picked up a critical win over Team SoloMid in the 2020 LCS Spring season. Liquid started the second half of the season with a massive victory and is ready to fight for a spot in the playoffs. Liquid came into Week 6 without its bottom lane star, with Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng missing the action due to a serious case of laryngitis. The team started Academy player Edward “Tactical” …
League of Legends
Doublelift to miss Liquid’s LCS match with Team SoloMid due to illness
William Davis
Team Liquid is facing another roadblock in the LCS. The team will play Week 6 in the 2020 LCS Spring Split without star player Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng. It will instead start academy player Edward “Tactical” Ra. The bottom laner is currently recovering from laryngitis and cannot use his voice, forcing him out of Liquid’s upcoming showdown with Team SoloMid. Tactical trained with the LCS roster over the past few days and the …
League of Legends
2020 LPL Spring Split to resume in March amid coronavirus fears
William Davis
The 2020 LPL Spring season is back after a six-week hiatus, and the action will resume on March 9. On January 26, the LPL decided to postpone the activities due to the coronavirus outbreak in China. As the situation worsened in the country, fans started to wonder if the competition would take place at all. There were conversations about the Chinese teams missing the Mid-Season Invitational and possible repercussions in …
G2 Esports takes easy win over SK Gaming, but fans should be scared
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports picked up a victory over SK Gaming in the 2020 LEC Spring Season to keep its spot in the three-way tie for first place with Origen and Fnatic. G2 took SK apart in a 25-minute map that bordered on being unpleasant to watch. G2 opted for an experimental composition with Taliyah in the bottom lane. SK tried to adapt as best as they could and ended up with …
TFT: Galaxies will add Star Guardians, keep Blademasters and Sorcerers
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games has revealed new information about set 3, Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies. TFT: Galaxies is taking the game to new heights. The third set is coming out next month and Riot gave fans a sneak peak at the new traits that are coming to the game. Mecha fans and Star Guardians enthusiasts will be quite pleased with what’s to come. Longtime League of Legends fans all know and love the …
Riot Games removes region select, transitions to global accounts
William Davis
League of Legends
The League of Legends client is missing one key button lately and no, it’s not a mistake. Riot Games removed the region selection button from the client as part of the transition into Riot accounts. Riot accounts are global accounts that will be used for both League of Legends and other upcoming Riot Games titles, including the previously revealed tactical shooter and fighting game. For the past couple of months, …
T1 beats Griffin, takes first place in the 2020 LCK Spring Split
William Davis
League of Legends
T1 is dominating the 2020 LCK Spring season, with the latest example of this coming in Week 4 with a clean victory over Griffin. T1 faced serious questions about its future during the offseason, as the team lost two of its star players and its longtime coach. Making matters worse, the new version of the team underwhelmed in its debut effort at the 2019 KeSPA Cup. That had analysts pointing …
High school esports are expanding more than ever with new deal
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Following in North America’s footsteps, European high schools are starting to see more and more esports programs. The British Esports Association and the North American Scholastic Esports Federation revealed a partnership today that has a focus on changing perception of esports in high schools. Currently, many schools consider esports a program, not a sport. The BEA and NASEF aim to change that with a structured competitive environment. The two associations …
MSI 2020 postponed due to growing concern over coronavirus
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
The League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational is the latest esports event to be delayed due to the coronavirus. In a statement on Twitter, Riot’s global head of esports, John Needham, addressed the virus’ ongoing threat to travelers. “As countries around the world respond to the coronavirus, we’ve had to adjust our plans and delay announcing the timing and location of MSI 2020,” Needham told League of Legends fans. “While we …
Riot Games accused of collusion around sexual discrimination trial
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Two state agencies have accused Riot Games of collusion amidst an ongoing sexual misconduct trial. After the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing declared that Riot Games may owe $400 million to women who endured sexual harassment and lower wages, a new legal council has taken over the class action lawsuit against the game developer. In January, the DFEH stated that 1,000 women working at Riot Games, past and present, …
Dignitas throws hard, gives hope to struggling Team Liquid
William Davis
League of Legends
Team Liquid secured a win against Dignitas in the 2020 LCS Spring Split to further recover from its rocky start to the split. Liquid still has a long way to go before dreaming about the playoffs. The victory over Dignitas puts the team in a four-way tie for sixth place, not exactly where the defending champion wants to be. It’s been a slow start for Liquid, and from not having its …
Riot Turkey mutes chants to ban Zeitnot, no response to Dumbledoge
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Riot Turkey is under fire after the League of Legends developer seemingly silenced their fans over the Mustafa “Dumbledoge” Kemal controversy. Last week, one of Turkey’s most famous League of Legends veterans left SuperMassive after allegedly enduring homophobic insults and verbal abuse at the hands of his teammates and other Turkish pro players. The biggest offender was his former friend and teammate Burkay “Zeitnot” Aşıkuzun. After Dumbledoge revealed screenshots and first-hand accounts of …
Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies units, traits, release date information
William Davis
League of Legends
Riot Games revealed the theme for Teamfight Tactics Set 3 and it promises to be an out of this world experience. TFT: Galaxies is the title of the highly anticipated third set. Galaxies will put TFT players into the middle of a “League universe-spanning intergalactic war.” Like its predecessor, TFT: Rise of the Elements, TFT: Galaxies will add new champions, traits, skins, and game mechanics. The first change is the …
G2 Esports gets back on track, runs over Excel Esports in LEC Spring
William Davis
League of Legends
G2 Esports started week five of the 2020 LEC Spring Split with a dominant victory over Excel Esports. G2 is back in the win column after losing two games in week four. The team showed a cleaner game against Excel, which led them to a dominant win. Excel didn’t stand a chance against a G2 that looks to be playing seriously once again. In the picks and bans, G2 went …
Dumbledoge reveals years of verbal abuse and homophobia in TCL
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Turkish League of Legends veteran Mustafa “Dumbledoge” Kemal, also known as the “Faker Slayer,” has announced that he’s a free agent. On Twitter, Dumbledoge stated that he has left SuperMassive after becoming sick of homophobic treatment from some players on the team. He attached a TwitLonger that outlined homophobic abuse and bullying from 2017 to the present. In 2017, Dumbledoge left SuperMassive shortly after the Mid-Season Invitational. According to the Turkish …
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
LCK Spring Split indefinitely delayed after spike in coronavirus cases
By
William Davis
League of Legends
Project A renamed Valorant, gameplay and characters revealed
By
Olivia Richman
League of Legends
Team SoloMid on LCS losing streak after loss to Counter Logic Gaming
By
William Davis
