Riot's API Challenge brings innovation and Yasuo bans
Riot’s API Challenge brought out the best and brightest in the developer community.
With 300,000 Riot Points on the line, developers who took part in the contest had five weeks to work on their projects. Developers of all skill levels participated, creating applications that interacted with Riot’s game client through the League Client APIs.
According to Riot, one of the goals for the API Challenge was to “strengthen and empower the developer community as a whole.”
Many of the projects were focused on finding useful and creative solutions to common problems for League of Legends players. Others are exercises in humor, like YasuNO and Derpthemeus’ YasuNO, a simple application that blocks players from picking Yasuo.
A winner and runner-up were determined for three different categories, each judged on such criteria as technical difficulty and project documentation. The winners received 50,000 RP per team member, while the runners-up won 15,000 RP per team member.
The winner in the challenge’s Usability category was Dark Binding by xJinx. This API would allow League players to assign individual keybindings to particular champions. When entering a game, Dark Binding would detect the selected champion and automatically switch to the proper keybinding page.
Vexrax and Earleking won the Creativity category with their Insert Mission Here program. This API creates missions for both clubs and individuals. It also features competitions for clubs in which club members are tasked with completing the most missions possible, called Club Wars.
The Entertainment category went to Heriot and MT RainbowWolf’s API Bravery. This application randomizes champions, summoner spells, runes, and item sets, “keeping players honest” in a game mode called Ultimate Bravery.
Olivia Richman
About Olivia Richman
Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.
View full profile
Read Also
Esports Betting
Hanwha Life Esports vs T1: Best betting odds and picks for the LCK Road to MSI 2026 match
Hannan Mundia
After a long rest, Hanwha Life Esports and T1 will compete in the 2026 LCK Road to MSI’s third round to determine which team gets an instant pass to MSI. Both teams performed the best in the recent LCK split, resulting in them getting the best possible seeds for the Road to MSI. The winner of this match qualifies for MSI, while the loser get one more chance in the ...
Esports Betting
After a perfect split, C9 might lose LCS playoffs for the 8th time in a row
Ben Boland
After going 7-0 in the regular season, Cloud9 lost to LYON in the LCS Spring Split playoffs. Despite dominating through the entire split, they now sit in the loser’s bracket after a 3-0 loss. This wouldn’t be alarming for any other team. However, this is already the story of Cloud9’s last seven splits. C9 completed the regular season of the LCS Spring Split 2026 without dropping a single match. In ...
Esports Betting
The LEC’s viewership went down in 2026 despite a higher peak
Ben Boland
The LEC Spring Split 2026 has just concluded, with G2 Esports claiming the crown for the 19th time. Culminating in an epic five-game series against Karmine Corp, the LEC’s final match was watched by up to 562,000 people, higher than Spring 2025. Aside from that match though, the tournament’s viewership is down from last year. Let’s dive into it. The grand final of the 2026 Spring Split reached 562,322 concurrent ...
Esports Betting
Time magazine ranks Faker among the 100 most influential people in sports
Wasif Ahmed
Time magazine released its inaugural version of TIME100 Sports, a list of the 100 most influential figures in sports. The TIME100 Sports 2026 features legends of football, basketball, racing, and many other Olympic disciplines. Alongside them stands Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok as the sole esports representative. The Unkillable Demon King is listed as one of the sports “icons” in 2026. In their description of the LCK legend, Time magazine called him ...
Esports Betting
Locke preview: LoL’s single new champion of 2026
Wasif Ahmed
League’s newest champion Locke will hit the Rift on June 24 alongside patch 26.13. As a mid lane AP assassin, the Ashen Exorcist is the only champion that Riot will release in 2026. The demon hunter will be unique for an assassin in that he has to set up his burst before delivering it. Read all about it in our Locke preview. The Ashen Exorcist is a demon-hunting melee, AP ...
Esports Betting
Top Esports beats Team WE in the LPL, qualifies for MSI 2026
Wasif Ahmed
Against all odds, Top Esports faced Team WE in the LPL upper bracket final. Both teams fought over a spot for the Mid-Season Invitational that everyone expected Anyone’s Legend, Bilibili Gaming, or JD Gaming to claim. In the end, TES paused WE’s Cinderella story as they beat them 3-0. Before this series, World Elite had defeated two LPL powerhouses in BLG and AL. Against TES, though, they suddenly lost all ...
League of Legends
G2 Esports complete comeback against Karmine Corp to win LEC Spring 2026
Hannan Mundia
After a fairly smooth split, G2 Esports emerged victorious in the 2026 LEC Spring split grand final by making a comeback against Karmine Corp. The 2026 LEC Spring split has finally concluded. With spots at MSI and the Esports World Cup on the line, every professional European team gave it their all to get as far as they could. While most teams fell quickly, Karmine Corp and G2 Esports managed ...
