League of Legends (LoL) has grown from a small 2009 multiplayer game inspired by the original DotA into Riot Games’ juggernaut franchise. It’s spawned many spinoff pieces of media, as well as garnering a massive community in the Esports scene.
Because of the sheer amount of history contained in the 15-year-old game, there’s no shortage of said history to talk about. The game has accumulated tons of trivia to share about how it’s evolved over the years, as well as the current state of things.
Diving into the history of League of Legends
When was League of Legends released, and how did it come to be?
League of Legends was released in October of 2009, however, the idea for developing the game came all the way back in 2005, when Riot Games had the idea of making a spiritual successor to the Warcraft III mod titled “Defense of the Ancients” (DotA).
DotA is often seen as the pioneering and popularization of an entirely new genre of video games and served as the inspiration for many popular multiplayer titles.
While League of Legends couldn’t call itself anything to the tune of “DotA 2” or officially associate itself with the original mod due to Valve Corporation acquiring the rights to use the DotA name (originally releasing their own “Dota 2” in 2013), many still see LoL as a spiritual successor to the mod due to its particular style of gameplay, as well as it beating Valve to the market by 4 years.
How has League of Legends changed over the years?
LoL’s original early seasons (approximately spanning from 2010 to 2013) had a heavy focus on large-scale team fighting and generally had much simpler strategies compared to the modern day, much of which can be attributed to how new the game was to many at the time.
However, even in this era, the Esports side of things was already starting to take off, with a large community forming over the LoL esports scene. Many now commonplace aspects of Esports were pioneered in this era, such as Esports online betting.
Over the years, features such as betting have become mainstream, spawning subcommunities out of the larger esports scene that dedicate themselves to finding the best ways to bet in order to achieve the best returns.
Throughout the mid-2010s, League of Legends further built on the popularity it achieved in years prior and built on them. The meta definitely shifted, and you could often see more aggressive play with more complicated and nuanced strategies.
Professional players would start pulling off some very advanced and impressive feats of teamwork, and junglers started having a larger influence on how the game would play out. Additionally, scenes like betting outgrew their beginnings and were much more full-fledged.
The most popular of these services, Stake.com, was launched at this time, and it remains open and thriving for anyone looking to easily place their own bets. LoL overall was having a boom in popularity, and had a steadily growing playerbase due to it being free and easy to run on most computers.
In the present day, League of Legends has been enjoying faster-paced games in comparison to previous years, and more strategies involving lane swapping have been introduced into the meta.
Lane swapping is when a player assigned a lane decides to swap with another on the same team, which can be beneficial to do at times depending on the situation.
Additionally, players have been getting much more creative with which hero combinations they choose, and how they utilize the ones they have chosen.
While the majority of these statements apply mainly to the Esports scene, many changes have been brought forth which also affect common players of the game.
Since 2009, over 160 champions have been introduced into the game, with older ones regularly receiving updates and rebalances to how they work, in order to maintain relevance in how the game currently plays.
Additionally, services outside of League of Legends are at their prime in the modern day, with anything from specialized wikis and guides to services that allow LoL betting.
All of these have through the power of the internet achieved immense mainstream popularity, and allowed the game to have a thriving community outside of the core gameplay itself.
Questions and trivia about modern LoL Esports teams
What are some of the most successful teams in LoL history?
With a history as long and complex as that of League of Legends, many teams have come and gone, though over the years there have been some hard to beat standouts.
- T1 (Formerly known as SK Telecom T1) has arguably been the most dominant team. They initially won three League of Legends World Championship titles in 2013, 2015, and 2016. It should be mentioned that their 2015 win is their most famous, often being regarded as the most dominant showing at the World Championship ever. T1 (then known by many as SKT) absolutely dominated the entire championship, only ever having lost one game, and not even dropping a tier 2 tower until the finals. After this winning streak, they experienced a slump which they could not recover from for a long time. However, they’ve recently picked up steam once more and once again took the title in 2023 and 2024. Only time will tell if T1 can once again have a trio of titles, this time in the modern era of the game
- Samsung Galaxy, despite now being defunct, is a notable team in League of Legends due to having been the ones to finally dethrone T1, winning the finals of the 2017 championship in a shocking 3-0 blowout victory. This remains the team’s only ever victory, though it has gone down in history as one of the most notable ones in the entire scene of Esports. Samsung Galaxy could have possibly won even more as a team, but their parent company and title sponsor Samsung decided to sell the team while it was worth the most it would ever be. It was acquired by KSV Esports, now known as Gen. G. While Gen. G remains one of the best teams in the sport, it so far has not reached the heights that it did under the previous ownership and funding of Samsung. As of the time of writing, the roster of Gen. G has not managed to secure a single World’s title under their current ownership.
- Invictus Gaming (IG) is the first team of Chinese origin to win the world title in LoL, firmly securing the 2018 championship in an incredibly dominant fashion. This is often attributed to their founding of many meta-shifting new strategies that nobody facing them was prepared for. Typical strategies that were used up to that point were simply no match for what IG was cooking up at that time, and players such as Rookie, TheShy and Jackeylove executed said strategies flawlessly. IG has never again displayed such a dominant performance (sometimes even failing to qualify for the World Championship), though they remain in business and participate in the game to this day.
- FunPlus Phoenix (FPX) is another Chinese team that claimed the 2019 World Championship, cementing back-to-back wins for the country. FPX mainly accomplished this via their aggressive playstyle that many struggled to keep up with. Along with the usual excellent execution that is required to win the title, FPX handily took the trophy home.
Overall, the League primarily sees teams of East Asian origin win both minor and major championships. South Korea and China stand out as the main contributors, and while Western teams remain relevant in the LoL Esports scene, they rarely ever present a serious challenge to winning the world title.
The only notable challenges to the title were those by G2 Esports in 2019 and Cloud9’s semifinal run in 2018. East Asian countries have historically dominated MOBAs and RTS games, with other notable examples being Starcraft 2 and Dota 2.
In fact, the only Western team to ever take home the LoL Worlds title was Fnatic, where they achieved the feat of winning the very first World championship in 2011.
What are the biggest regional rivals in LoL esports?
- T1 vs. KT Rolster (Korea) – Earning the nickname the “Telecom War”, this remains one of the oldest rivalries in LoL history and a hot topic of contention for fans of either team.
- G2 Esports vs. Fnatic (Europe) – The battle for the best European LoL team has been ongoing for many years now, and has primarily been fought by G2 and Fnatic. The teams have traded the position as the years have gone by, though both remain solidly behind their Asian counterparts.
- T1 vs. Gen. G (Korea) – The rivalry between these two is the hot new debate around LoL esports, and while it seems that T1 has been edging Gen. G out in the most important championships, the two remain close rivals in the modern day.
- Top Esports vs. JD Gaming (China) – China’s biggest rivalry for which team can be considered the best to come out of the country. It’s been argued many times over which team is better, but it’s a win-win for China as it’s allowed healthy competition and a bolstered presence in the Esports scene for the nation.
- NA vs. EU (International) – While Asian teams dominate the sport, the spot for second best is heavily debated, and people cannot seem to agree on if North America or Europe provide a tougher challenge to the top spot.
Questions and trivia about modern LoL Esports players
Who is considered the greatest LoL player of all time?
Many fans and analysts alike consider Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok to be the greatest player in the history of the game. He is a mid lane player, and one that’s been there for all of the Worlds titles won by T1 (2013, 2015, 2016, 2023, 2024).
To date, he has the most impressive legacy of any player, and shows no signs of stopping, still being in his twenties and better than ever at the game in which he’s made such a monumental impact.
What are some of the biggest player transfers in LoL history?
- Perkz leaving G2 Esports for Cloud9 in 2021 remains one of the biggest player transfers to ever occur in the Western scene of LoL esports. A legend of the game in his own right, it’s speculated that he made the move due to Cloud9 offering a more generous wage. Perkz maintains that his official reasoning is due to not having faith in G2, and wanting to find a team that he could win Worlds with. However, with Western teams generally struggling in the World Championships as a whole, as well as Cloud9 performing worse than G2 at the time, his official line of reasoning has been heavily criticized by fans and professionals alike.
- TheShy joining Weigo Gaming in 2022 was a high profile move in the Chinese League of Legends community. However, it was regarded as a smart move at the time, and the new teammates he would be working with were seen as a better fit for him. While Weibo initially showed serious promise to possibly challenge the title, they were quickly shut down before they could reach Worlds, and remain nothing more than decent to this day.
- Doinb is a player who has made various changes in the past years. An excellent mid-laner, he’s brought pretty decent success to the teams he has joined and remains a sought-after player in the Chinese LoL esports scene.
All in all, while player transfers aren’t uncommon, especially impactful ones often are. Players who are often successful with their current teams often don’t really consider moving to any other team and are really only ever lured either by the promise of even bigger successes than the team they’re already with, or a higher paycheck than the one they’re already with.
While the latter can be seen as a more selfish way of looking at things as a competitive Esports player, It remains a trend in Esports as a whole.
