League of Legends (LoL), commonly referred to as League, is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by Defense of the Ancients, a custom map for Warcraft III, Riot's founders sought to develop a stand-alone game in the same genre. Since its release in October 2009, League has been free-to-play and is monetized through purchasable character customization. The game is available for Microsoft Windows and macOS.

In the game, two teams of five players battle in player-versus-player combat, each team occupying and defending their half of the map. Each of the ten players controls a character, known as a "champion", with unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match, champions become more powerful by collecting experience points, earning gold, and purchasing items to defeat the opposing team. In League's main mode, Summoner's Rift, a team wins by pushing through to the enemy base and destroying their "Nexus", a large structure located within.

League of Legends has received generally positive reviews; critics highlighted its accessibility, character designs, and production value. The game's long lifespan has resulted in a critical reappraisal, with reviews trending positively; the negative and abusive in-game behavior of its players, criticized since early in the game's lifetime, persists despite Riot's attempts to fix the problem. In 2019, League regularly peaked at eight million concurrent players, and its popularity has led to tie-ins such as music videos, comic books, short stories, and the animated series Arcane. Its success has spawned several spin-off video games, including League of Legends: Wild Rift, a mobile version, Legends of Runeterra, a digital collectible card game and Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, a turn-based role-playing game, among others. A massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the property is in development.

Considered one of the greatest video games ever made, League of Legends is the world's largest esport, the game has an international competitive scene consisting of multiple regional leagues. They culminate in the annual League of Legends World Championship. The 2019 event registered over 100 million unique viewers, peaking at a concurrent viewership of 44 million during the finals. Domestic and international events have been broadcast on livestreaming websites such as Twitch, YouTube, Bilibili, and on cable television sports channel ESPN.

League of Legends is a free-to-play PC game that was released in 2009, and its gamer base has been growing ever since. The game features the perfect blend of fantasy and punk culture and follows an extraordinary storyline. So, how many people play League of Legends? As per a LoL player count from October 2017, the game has an active base of over 80 million monthly players and over 27 million daily players. LoL has literally shattered gaming records set by other games. The only platform to beat this CCU record is the Steam Platform which set its record in November of 2015 as 13.48 million concurrent online users, but bear in mind that Steam splits its users over thousands of different games. LoL takes the King's Hat therefore for having the largest consolidated concurrent user base for a single title. Considering the popularity of LoL, there is no way gamers should miss on the opportunity to show off their gaming skills by playing this MOBA game with other members of the community.

What’s the next step for a player that has just recently gained enough experience to level up to 30 besides playing another normal or ARAM match? Climbing the ranked ladder of course! There’s no better way to quench the thirst for competition than going up the tier slowly and progress enough to be one of the top players in a region or possibly even the world! For players that are new to this and just got started, the ranking system of League of Legends can be complicated. Recently, the ranking system has been revamped into something that’s much bigger and arguably better for everyone. For players that are new to ranked, it can be somewhat confusing at first. With so many different tiers and divisions to climb, not to mention players can climb in different types of ranked games, it’s understandable that it’ll be hard for newer players to know how everything goes right from the get-go.

Similar to games like Overwatch, CS:GO, and DOTA 2, ranked is League of Legends’ competitive game mode that pits teams of five players against each other. Ranked is only available for players that have reached level 30 and above, plus Summoners will need to have at least 16 different champions in their champ pool. In order to avoid finishing at a low rank after the placements, it’s better to start above level 30 so players can get better rewards. When Summoners first play a ranked game, they will be put into one of ten placement games to complete; from there the results of those ten games will determine their initial ranking placement. The more games players win during their placement matches, the better chances they have of starting in a rank like Silver or Gold tier. Once the Summoners have gotten their initial placement, it’s time to win some games and gain LP.

LP are points that are determined with a player's Match Making Rating or MMR for short. You gain LP by winning matches, and once they reach 100 LP, players will be up for promotion to go to a higher rank or division. If they are up for promotion in a division, there will be three promo games, two of which they will have to win for them to raise their division. For ranks, players will get to have five promo games instead, with three of those games they will have to win in order to attain a higher rank. LP is a different matter when it comes to Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger tier accounts. Instead of having to deal with doing promo matches, players will instantly be promoted once they reach a specific amount of LP. For Challenger tier accounts, they will no longer have to deal with those promotions since Challenger is the higher rank of all in League of Legends. What remains is competition—to be Rank 1 in a player's region. 200 Summoners will continuously fight for the top ladder, so gaining the highest LP makes that player the winner. Players can also lose LP by being inactive on long durations of time. However, this can only be applied to players that are in the Platinum rank of above. The decay of a player's LP starts if they haven’t played a ranked game for 28 days. For the Master and Challenger tiers, the reduction of LP will come into effect if they don’t play a ranked game after a mere five days.

The current ranks in League of Legends from lowest to higher are as follows: Iron Bronze Silver Gold Platinum Diamond Master Grandmaster Challenger With the season welcoming two new tiers, Iron and Grandmaster, things just got a little harder for the players. Iron is the lowest rank out of all the ranks, while Grandmaster sits between Master and Challenger. Each separate rank has four divisions, being that the divisions start from four and end at one as opposed to the past seasons having five divisions. Four is the lowest division in every rank and one being the highest. With fewer divisions and more tiers, a player's rank will be more accurately reflected towards their skills and improvement as a player.