League of Legends

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About

League of Legends (or "LoL"), is a free-to-play MOBA (Multiplayer Online-Based Arena) game, based on the Defense of the Ancients mod for Warcraft III. League of Legends was developed for Windows, and later for Mac OS X by Riot Games, and is supported by micro-transactions.

History

As with all Moba games, League of Legends had its humble beginnings with DoTA, which in itself is the map "Aeon of Strife" ported for Warcraft 3 as a mod. DotA was originally designed by Eul, but later became DoTA Allstars when Steve "Guinsoo" Feak added a vast amount of content of his own to the game.

It was after Steve "Guinsoo" Feak had passed on the torch of DotA to Icefrog, and banded together with Steve "Pendragon" Mescon, as well as Marc "Tryndamere" Merrill to form Riot Games, did League of Legends finally come into fruition. Announced on October 7, 2008 and released on October 27, 2009 League of Legends had come a long way, and has since then grown to become one of the most popular games of all time.

World Championship

The League of Legends World Championship is a tournament that has taken place annually since 2011 where professional League of Legends players compete for the Summoner's Cup and a prize of one million US dollars.^[14] The tournaments have taken place all over the world, ant the finals having taken place in Sweden, Los Angeles, South Korea, and Berlin. It is an extremely popular event. The tickets to Season III World Championship in October 2013, were apparently sold out in an hour.^[12] The Championship was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which seats 15'000 viewers at the basketball matches, making it a huge events on the scale of E-Sports. The championship tournaments are the most watched E-sport, and regularly beat viewership for some of the largest American sporting events like the NBA Finals and the World Series. In 2015, the finals were watched by 36 million people worldwide. In 2016, they are taking place in cities across the United States, and the finals will again take place in the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Kai'Sa

On February 9th, 2018, YouTuber Remus uplaoded a video speculating that Kai'Sa would be a new playable champion added to the game (shown below).

On February 16th, the /r/kaisamains^[16] subreddit was launched for discussions about the character. On February 20th, League of Legends officially announced the upcoming release of Kai'Sa. That day the SkinSpotlights channel uploaded a video showcasin Kai'Sa's abilities (shown below, left). The following day, SkinSpotlights uploaded a video of Kai'Sa's in-game interactions (shown below, right).

On March 5th, 2018, League of Legends released a "Champion Spotlight" video for the character (shown below). That day, a post about the trailer reached the front page of the /r/leagueoflegends^[15] subreddit. 48 hours later, Kai'Sa was officially released in-game.

Neeko

On November 19th, 2018, the League of Legends YouTube feed released a reveal trailer for the new playable character Neeko (shown below). Within 24 hours, the video gained over 3.9 million views and 24,800 comments.

The character is a "flower mage" able to shapeshift to trick opponents into thinking she is on their side with the passive ability Inherent Glamour. That day, the SkinSpotlights YouTube channel uploaded footage of the special interactions for the character (shown below).

Also on November 19th, Riot Games writer Matt Dunn tweeted that the character "identifies as a lesbian" (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 1,300 likes and 590 retweets.^[17]

Gameplay

The following are game modes, from which the players can choose from:

Classic: From the 120+ available champions, teams of 5, or alternatively 3 depending on the map, try to take out the Nexus of the opposing team. On their way to the enemy base, the players must lead and kill hordes of minions, and take out enemy towers, which guard the way to the opposing teams base. By killing minions, monsters, enemy champions, and towers, the champions gain gold, which can then be used to further increase their fighting potential. The Classic mode is available in two different maps, which are Summoners Rift (5v5), and Twisted Treeline (3v3). Both of these maps also allow players to play on a ranked ladder in a more competitive environment, with exclusive rewards waiting at the end of each season, depending on performance.

ARAM: All Random All Mid is a 5v5 game mode played on the Howling Abyss map, in which every player is dealt a random champion. Players can exchange these champios with each other, as long as both of them have that same champion, or use up to two rerolls, gained by playing ARAM. The goal of the game, like in other modes, is to destroy the enemy Nexus, before they can destroy yours.
Dominion: A capture the point game mode, released by Riot late in late 2011, taking place on the Crystal Scar map. Teams of 5 try to capture the 5 points on the map, alongside waves of minions. The team with more points captured, continue to automatically damage the Nexus of the opposing team. Whichever teams Nexus is destroyed first, loses.
Co-op Vs A.I: A game mode where the players can practice the maps by battling A.I. This mode is available on Summoners Rift, The Twisted Treeline, and Scrystal Scar.
Limited Time Modes: These are game modes that appear for short duration during special occasions, offering different gameplay gimmicks that are fun for a while, but might not work on a longer run. These modes have included games such as One For All in which every team member had the same champion, Ultra Rapid Fire (URF) in which the players had unlimited mana and 80% cooldown reduction, and Legend of The Poro King in which players were able to toss and summon poros, and teleport to them.

Lore

The League of Legends takes place in Valoran. In the original lore, it was a mystical land ravaged by misuse of magic, where the League of Legends was created in order to restore balance. The players played robed magicians called summoners, who "summoned" battle ready warriors called champions into the "Fields of Justice", where they fought for honor, glory, and the occasional political power struggle.

Recently, Riot has started revamping the entire lore into a more generic fantasy story, and most notably, has taken steps towards removing summoners, and the actual League of Legends itself from the lore. Many other older lore elements, such as the Journal of Justice and Champion Judgements, have also disappeared alltogether. However, many champions still have summoners mentioned in their lore, as well as in their dialogue, which will probably change once they go through a champion rework or re-release. The new and updated lore allows for larger scale events, such as the Shurima event, during which several champions were either released or udated, new general lore was intorduced via different media, and a new temporary game mode with limited rewards was implemented.

Online Presence

The League of Legends subreddit hit 600'000 subscribers on Secember 2014, and is in the top 10 of the most active non-default subreddits. On the 7th of October 2012 during the Season 2 World Championship Quarterfinals the "Stream Off"^[1] thread had reached the top of /r/all in 8 minutes beating Jamie Hyneman's AMA. League of Legends also has an ever growing YouTube community, built around famous YouTubers such as Dunkey and SivHD, providing new content in the form of gameplay videos, animations, etc. League of Legends is also the most popular livestreamed game on Twitch.tv. The League of Legends Wiki^[2] is also available for details on characters and stats, and the official Facebook page has over 12'000'000 likes as of December 2014.

Reception

League of Legends has gained a considerable following throughout the world, and has won multiple awards, such as the Golden Joystick award, as well as the Game Developers Choice online awards to name a few. IGN awarded League of Legends 8.0 out of 10. As of January 2014, over 67 million people play League of Legends monthly.

Fandom

Since its release, the game has gained massive popularity. By the end of Season 2, Riot had announced that League of Legends had become "By hours played by month, the most played PC game in the world.". Being one of the powerhouses of E-Sports (Electronic Sports) along with Starcraft. It has also spawned an extremely creative community, which participates by producing content in the form of fanart, fanfiction, cosplay, animations, fan comics, gifs, gameplay videos, parodies, machinima videos, music, and much more.

The game's forums are very active with normal players, and developers of the game (known as "Reds" on the forums, due to their red names). The active forums have spawned many memes within the community, based on the game.

Cosplay

Riot Games often endorses cosplay with prizes, so it is of no surprise that League of Legends cosplayers are often seen in many anime/gaming conventions, such as Dragoncon, Anime Expo, and the Penny Arcade Exposition.

Fan Art

The League of Legends community produces a massive amount of fanart. The deviant art group as of February 2014 has over 11,300 members and well over 700,000 page views.

Dance Master Phreak and Nerf Master Suck Town

On January 21, 2011, user 'cbr1000rider3' created a thread^[3] on the League of Legends forum, showing his patch preview comic, which was a comic using stills taken from Riot's Patch Preview^[4]. In the 2nd comic, he gives Phreak (a Riot employee) the name "Dance Master Phreak" for his story of hitting on a girl at a club and dancing to Britney Spear's "Hold It Against Me." Like most of the old content, the original comic has since then been removed. User "Whist" also made a video adaption of Dance Master Phreak, which was later uploaded to Youtube on February 20th, 2011, where it gathered over 500,000 views as of February 2014.

From the same comic series spawned the nickname Nerf Master Suck Town for Riot employee Morello. This is because he is known to nerf champions (make them less powerful), whether or not it's better for the game, making some community members mad. Morello has noted this nickname, and has even used it on the forums, although briefly.

"I ate some oranges and it was K."

Starting out from a thread^[5] created by SantiagoBR on July 1, 2011. "I ate some oranges and it was K" is inspired by the champion Gangplank, who has an ability which allows him to remove any form of Crowd Control by consuming a large quantity of citrus, healing himself in the process. Because Gangplank is a pirate, "It was K" is often associated with pirate related media, and when it comes to Gangplank himself, it's usually associated with his Sailor Gangplank skin. A band called "The Yordles" has also made a parody song called "It was K"^[6] in a reference to this meme.

ok

ok is a derailing meme on the League of Legends forums, but it is often seen on sites such as Reddit. The original thread^[7] started by user "DrowElfDrizzt" on September 11, 2010, started the whole thing.

Users say nothing but "ok" (properly all lower case, no punctuation) to resemble the character Rammus, who barely says anything else but "ok." Users who don't say "ok" are downvoted until their post is no longer viewable. The behaviour is meant to derail troll threads, or pointless threads. Noobs and trolls who try to derail good threads, are downvoted and usually ridiculed instead.

Mord es #1 HUEHUEHUE

See also: Huahuehuahue

On October 30, 2010, user "futebolBR" made a thread called "Brasil 5v5 Tier List"^[8], which parodied a well known player's list of all the champions and how good they are.In the list, the most notable quote was for the champion Mordekaiser, which was listed as the best champion in the game. The description reads: "Mordekaizer (es the best, #1, best, shield es always win, never loose)."

This description of Mordekaiser became a very popular amongst the LoL fanbase. Any time someone brings up Mordekaiser it's almost certain that one of the first replies will be "Mord es #1 HUEHUEHUE." This has also spread to YouTube, with many videos dealing with Brazilians having "MORD ES #1 HUEHUEHUE" as a top comment.

Spin to Win

This meme originated from the champion Garen, who has an ability called Judgement, making him spin around with his sword. Upon release, he was generally overpowered, and the LoL community dubbed him "Spin 2 Win", as you simply pressed a button to spin, and watched the enemy die. This also inspired the saying "Demacian justice hides in the brushes", since it used to be a common tactic to wait in brushes until some unfortunate soul wandered into the same brush Garen was hiding in, and then just spin to win.

Garen is also associated with screaming "DEMACIAAAAAA!"

A popular forum thread^[9] was created by the user "DontShoot" on September 4, 2010 which holds a collection of MS Paint pictures showing Garen doing funny parodies of Spin 2 Win. In the League of Legends game files, Wukong's ultimate ability Cyclone, is named "MonkeyKingSpinToWin" in a reference to Garen's Judgement ability.

Jesse Perring

Jesse Perring is pretty much known as the Chuck Norris of League of Legends.^[10] Jokes about Jesse Perring are the same as Chuck Norris jokes, usually telling a story of how he does something that would normally be impossible. The meme came from a thread^[11] started by "Skribbles," another Riot employee, on September 29, 2009.

This is Jesse Perring's description as it used to appear on Riot's website.

Dunk Master Yi

Dunk Master Yi was created by YouTube user "notue" in his video "Pro as Heck Guide to Master Yi." The video has since been removed, but was reuploaded by others (shown below). In the video, "notue" gives a guide to the champion Master Yi, that is both ridiculous, and incorrect to the game. He also gives items new names. For example, he calls Health Potions as Red Sodas, Madred's Razor as X-Man Claws, and most notably, Zeal as Doubleswords. He also gives jungle monsters weird names, like "Rude Dudes" for Wraiths, "Stone Brothers" for Double/Twin Golems, and "Dog" for Wolves. Whenever he kills someone, he uses the catchphrase "Get Dunked", hence the name Dunk Master Yi.

The champion Vi sometimes shouts "Get Dunked" when using her ultimate ability Assault And Battery, in a reference to the video. The champion Yasuo also has a unique taunt towards Master Yi, in which he says "Nice, sword… Boots?", which also references the Dunk Master Yi video.

The word Dunking has become a common phrase to be used with champions with damaging leap abilities.There has also been an official Dunkmaster Bundle on sale, which included the champions Darius, Vi, and Jarvan, but actually excluded Master Yi himself. The players have also been requesting a "Dunkmaster Darius" skin for a long time, which was eventually turned into an actual skin.

Teemo Hate

Teemo is often considered the most hated champion in LoL by the fans of the game. He is one of the most annoying characters in the game to play against, due to his kit revolving around him poisoning you, and then running away. Not only is his kit annoying to play against, but he also sports one of the cutest looks in the game, and has a high pitched voice, which is sure to annoy many. He is often nicknamed Satan (or other similarly hellish name).

Teemo is jokingly said to have a "Global Taunt", which causes people to want to kill him at all costs, even if they lose an objective, or die in the process of doing so. Killing Teemo is always considered worth it. He is sometimes used as a unit of measurement, and the number Teemo dies, is often stated in infographics.

Raise Your Dongers

Main Entry: Raise Your Dongers

“Raise Your Dongers” is a catchphrase coined by Michael Santana, better known by his online handle Imaqtipie, that is associated with the champion Heimerdinger. Although its precise meaning is unclear, the phrase has since been adopted by his fans on the live video chatting service Twit Chat, along with the ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ emoticon.

In the Visual Update of Heimerdinger, he recieved a new quote "Raise your… What?", in a reference to this quote.

Draven's Moustache / League of Draven

Main Entry: Draven's Moustache / League of Draven

Draven's Moustache, or League of Draven, is similar to the TenantFace (Doctor Who). It originated after the release of the champion Draven, who quotes “Welcome to the League of Draven.” This prompted summoners to start a photoshop meme where all champions, and eventually everything started having Draven's face on it. It has become notorious on major League of Legends sites, as well as tumblr.

Variants and Additional Memes

Soon™: Often used by Riot employees when they talk about upcoming content, which has no specified date of release, or is still in the making. It's also often used by the community when something they want is taking ages to be released. When Riot is actually going to release content shortly, they often state that it is coming out "Soon", and not "Soon™".

Better Nerf Irelia: Originating from Riot's continuous nerfs to the champion Irelia due to her innate sustain, which was deemed harmful to the game. It is now believed that whenever anything occurs, the only logical solution is to nerf Irelia.
Tons of Damage: Is a meme that started when rioter Phreak overused the term "Tons of Damage" in multiple champion spotlights. It is often said to be "dealt" by building a Trinity Force.
I Play X as a Jungler: Another meme that started with rioter Phreak overusing a term. In conjunction to jungle nerfs, it was believed that any champion could be jungled (a role in the game) efficiently, and Phreak would undoubtly jungle with said character.
Worth: Worth (sometimes Wurth or Wurf) is a phrase often said when one dies in the process of achieving something, whether or not it actually was really worth it. Apparently the phrase started out with Phreak on the Lee Sin Champion Spotlight^[13]. He turret dove Fiddlesticks at level 2, expending both his summoner spells in order to kill him, but still died in the process. He then said; "The turret kills me, but it was worth it, because I said so in chat".
I'm Jarvan, I'm Helping: This quote is often associated with poorly excecuted Jarvan IV ultimates. When a Jarvan IV player uses his Cataclysm skill, he creates an arena of impassable terrain around his chosen target, and himself. However, if a Jarvan IV player manages to trap his allies in his ultimate, they tend to become easy targets for high damaging area of effect spells, thus potentially losing entire fights on his own. When people say that Jarvan is helping, he certainly isn't.
The Unseen X is the Deadliest: Originally "The unseen blade is the deadliest." is a quote from the champion Zed. The quote is often used on League of Legends subreddit, with the X replaced with whatever suits the situation at hand.