On Saturday, Riot’s Russia branch issued a six month ban to one of their most famous players. Kirill “Likkrit” Malofeyev had gone on his own stream earlier this month and gave rather candid answers to questions regarding the LCL’s problems as a league. Malofeyev’s official response to this was a post on the Russian social media site VKontakte where he promptly retired from playing League of Legends professionally. I will not lose respect to Riot despite my journey in League has come to an end. M

OpTic Gaming, one of the new teams to join the NA LCS in 2018, has announced its official starting line-up, but not exactly how we expected them to. The OpTic #NALCS team is delighted to wish you happy holidays and a joyful New Year. Each of the player tweets has a custom gif attached that shows off the player in their new OpTic uniform. Representing the team in the top lane will be former Phoenix1 player Derek “Zig” Shao. The team’s bottom lane will feature Noh “Arrow” Dong-hyeon, formerly of P

The Rift Herald: How did you get into, not just casting in general, but Riot casting and League of Legends casting? CR: Right, yeah, if you are already going to space you might as well shoot for the biggest, brightest star out there. Just because it synergizes so well with the way that I play the game. CR: Yeah, yeah, really showcasing what that champion can do. I think in the 2018 season, when it starts, you’re going to see a lot of Zoe bans and a lot of Ornn bans.

The Rift Herald: How did you get into, not just casting in general, but Riot casting and League of Legends casting? CR: Right, yeah, if you are already going to space you might as well shoot for the biggest, brightest star out there. Just because it synergizes so well with the way that I play the game. CR: Yeah, yeah, really showcasing what that champion can do. I think in the 2018 season, when it starts, you’re going to see a lot of Zoe bans and a lot of Ornn bans.

The Golden Guardians’ long awaited roster has finally been announced. The team, owned by the same forces behind the Golden State Warriors NBA team, is filled with LCS veterans. Elento joins Jackson as the second Liquid veteran to play for the Golden Guardians. Veteran LCS coach and former LCK player, Choi “Locodoco” Yoonsup, returns to the LCS to coach the Golden Guardians. To round out their announcement post, the Golden Guardians also announced that they would field a academy team.

Whether it’s Tahm Kench being a pretty good jungler, or Miss Fortune being the best AD Carry, solo queue’s always a little strange during the preseason. But none of those are quite as surprising as what Longzhu Gaming support player Kang “Gorilla” Beom-hyeon thinks is the strongest support in solo queue right now. When the Rift Herald had the chance to ask him what support he thought was secretly good at the 2017 All-Star Event in Los Angeles, Kang had this to say: “In Korean solo queue I saw a

After a grueling six hour series, All-Stars 2017 has finally crowned its champion, with China’s LPL dream team roster. Game one saw the LPL bring out a composition centered around jungler Liu “Mlxg” Shi-Yu’s Rammus. Unfortunately for them, the LMS team came with a composition prepared for team fights and spent most of the game winning them. After 30 minutes, the LMS team was up in kills 12-2 as well as a Baron, giving the LPL no path back into the game. By the time the dust finally settled, the

The 2017 All-Stars 1v1 tournament has come to a close after a fierce battle between the 2015 champion Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and 2016’s winner Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao. After a fantastic series that went to all three games, Jian became the first two time champion in All-Stars 1v1 history. For game two, the players both picked mid lane champions, with Bjerg on Taliyah and Jian on Syndra. The final match of the series Bjerg went with Ryze, while Jian picked the same Kalista that helped him win game one.

Kim “PraY” Jong-in and Martin “Rekkles” Larsson were set to duel it out in the All-Stars 1v1. According to the post game interview with Ovilee May, they were going to both pick marksmen but in the end decided to go with something funnier: Garen. After all, what would a Garen duel be without doing one of the most iconic dances in the game? After a bit of push, Kim eventually flashed in on Larsson and got the kill. Kim will going against Jian “Uzi” Zi-Hao on Saturday evening in the 1v1 Semifinals.

But the roster, An “Balls” Le, William “Meteos” Hartman, Hai Lam, Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Daerek “LemonNation” Hart, quickly proved that they were one of the best in North America, winning their first split handily over favorite’s TSM. Thanks to the different paths each player has taken, there is still something special about members of that original Cloud9 roster meeting during the season and facing off against one another. As the only member still on Cloud9 from the original team, AD Carr

The Group Stage of the 2017 All-Star Event has come to a close and included the swift exit of both North America and Europe from the tournament. The second match will be between the tournament’s strongest team, China’s LPL All-Stars and the surprisingly shaky Korean LCK All-Stars. Both of these series will be best of three with the winners advancing to face each other in the Finals. Just like the full team matches, these will be best of three series with the winners advancing to the Finals to be

Echo Fox has finally announced the team’s roster for the 2018 season and boy, is it different from what the team was last year. In this post, Echo Fox also announced their 2018 Academy roster. In the bot lane, Echo Fox has Lawrence “Lost” Hui on ADC and John “Papa Chau” Le on support. In the announcement post for the full roster, team owner Rick Fox states that this new group will take Echo Fox to new heights. Echo Fox has struggled in years past, but this completely new roster might be the chan

During the first game of the 2017 All-Star Event North American mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg showed exactly why many thought Zoe would be banned for the entire tournament. While the game started slow for Bjerg, who played a fairly safe laning phase, things quickly started to pick up during the mid game where he found picks with Zoe’s Sleepy Trouble Bubble. By the time the match reached the mid game, he was almost completely unstoppable ending teamfights before they could even begin with his

Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok has won the title of Best Esports Player for the 2017 Game Awards. Lee was pitted against Dota 2 player Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi, Overwatch player Ryu Je-hong, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac and Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David. Lee has long been considered the best League of Legends player in the world, and is far and away the most decorated in international competition. He has led his team, SKTelecom T1, to the League of Legends World Champion

Kt Rolster has announced that former Team Impulse and Cloud9 jungler Lee “Rush” Yoon-jae will be playing for the team come spring. Fans have been wondering what he had been planning to do since his leave, playing mainly solo queue in Korea. Lee is known for his play on Lee Sin and Nidalee and being fairly aggressive in the jungle. In the announcement, kt also announced Son “Ucal” Woo-hyun as the team’s mid laner and Son “Sonstar” Seung-ik as the coach. The team fell short during LCK Regional Fin

TSM announced on Tuesday that they have completed their 2018 roster with the signing of coaches Kim “Ssong” Sang-soo and Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik. Kim joins the team after a successful stint with former LCS team Immortals during the summer of 2017 when he took the team from 7th place in the Spring Split all the way to the World Championships. Previous to joining the North American team, Kim had coached successfully in Korea with the ROX Tigers organization taking them to Worlds in both 2015 and 20

100 Thieves have announced their starting support player for the 2018 NA LCS Season as Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black. Black has had an extensive career in the NA LCS previously playing the support role for Counter Logic Gaming for almost four years. Black and CLG parted ways during the off-season when the team chose to move in a new direction by picking up former TSM support Vincent “Biofrost” Wang. The only remaining spot to be announced for the team’s roster is Black’s duo partner in the bottom lan

The KeSPA Cup has never been like other tournaments. It’s the first major region tournament on the preseason patch, so each year’s KeSPA Cup has more than a few upsets, strange picks and unexpected results. This year the upsets have come all at once in the semifinals where Worlds runners-up SK telecom T1 took on Longzhu Gaming and World Champions Samsung Galaxy faced off against kt Rolster with both Worlds finalists losing to their opponents. Meanwhile, kt Rolster and Samsung played a slightly c

KSV eSports have acquired the roster of world champions, Samsung Galaxy, according to a press release from the organization. The company, a joint venture between “Silicon Valley and Seoul,” will re-brand the team for competition in the LCK during 2018. This is not the first esports venture for KSV who also own the Overwatch League’s Seoul Dynasty franchise, as well as a Heroes of the Storm team and a Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds team. Samsung Galaxy has represented South Korean League of Legend

KSV eSports have acquired the roster of world champions, Samsung Galaxy, according to a press release from the organization. The company, a joint venture between “Silicon Valley and Seoul,” will re-brand the team for competition in the LCK during 2018. This is not the first esports venture for KSV who also own the Overwatch League’s Seoul Dynasty franchise, as well as a Heroes of the Storm team and a Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds team. Samsung Galaxy has represented South Korean League of Legend