League of Legends Memes Explained: A Community Time Capsule

Rito Pls. Challenjour. Sucker Dog. League built up a decade of in-jokes that made perfect sense at the time and are completely impenetrable now. This is the archive, kept as a snapshot of what the community actually sounded like.

League of Legends

The Meme Archive

A Community Time Capsule

Every online game builds its own private language, and League built more of it than most. Some of these are still in daily use. Plenty of them died years ago and only survive in the memories of people who were arguing on the boards in 2013.

We've kept the list as it was written, because the point of it isn't accuracy about the current game. It's a record of what players found funny at the time.

Looking for actual terminology instead? This page used to double as a terminology dictionary. That half has moved and been rewritten as the League of Legends Terms Glossary, which covers every callout, abbreviation and piece of slang that's genuinely in use today, and gets updated as the game changes. This page stays put as the meme archive.

The Memes

1v1 me bro: A challenge issued by players who are salty about losing to enemy ganks and reckon they'd win one on one.
Ate an orange and it was k: Refers to Gangplank's Remove Scurvy [W], where he eats an orange and escapes every crowd control effect.
Auto-spacing: After losing a game, Doublelift blamed it on "auto-spacing". Some players agreed it could be a real thing, but the phrase became shorthand for any complicated sounding excuse.
best [insert noun here] NA: Used to express messing up terribly. Not necessarily derogatory.
Better Nerf Irelia: After a random nerf to Irelia for no particular reason long ago, this became a popular way to talk about things that need fixing but have nothing to do with Irelia.
Calculated: Said when someone pulls something off by the narrowest possible margin, then casually claims they knew it would work all along.
Challenjour: A player who thinks they're good enough for Challenger and very much isn't.
Dank Meme: An ironic expression used to mock viral jokes that have exhausted their comedic value.
Doge: Nasus.
Empire: A fully channeled Nunu ultimate in a bush combined with a Karthus ultimate.
fam: Short for family, and meant to sound friendly.
feelsbadman: Used when something said or done makes you feel bad.
Huehuehue: Originally used by Brazilian Portuguese players, later adopted more widely as mocking laughter.
I'm [champion], I'm helping :): A champion who tries to help and ends up ruining things for their team. See the GIF on this page.
Insec: Kicking or knocking an enemy back into your team by getting behind them first. Named after the player who made it famous, and most associated with Lee Sin, Azir and Jayce rather than Blitzcrank or Gragas.
Kappa: Tacked onto the end of a sentence to convey sarcasm.
Lag: Blamed whenever a mistake is made, regardless of whether network latency had anything to do with it.
Lucker Dog: Originally coined by Saintvicious as a variation on "lucker". See the origin story.
Madlife (Hook): Predicting where an enemy is going to Flash to and throwing a slow skillshot there before they've done it.
Ok: Players imitating Rammus, who famously only says "Ok".
Real?: A shortened "Really?", generally used to express displeasure at something that just happened.
Report 9x: Every single player other than the accused reporting them.
Rito Pls: An intentional misspelling of "Riot Please", used when a game-breaking bug or an unfair champion costs you the game.
Salt / Salty: Someone visibly upset at how a game is going, salt being the residue of tears.
Sandbox Mode: Riot once explained why they didn't want to release a sandbox mode. The phrase became shorthand for anything that's never going to happen.
Satan: Teemo.
Spin to Win: Garen or Katarina killing people by spinning.
Sucker Dog: See Lucker Dog for the origin story. This one is the straightforwardly derogatory version.
Vayne-Spotting: Doing something that instantly marks you out as a stereotypical Vayne main, generally not as a compliment.
Wombo Combo: Teammates chaining their abilities together into one devastating sequence.
Worth: Said whenever someone dies achieving something, whether or not it actually was.
xPeke: Teleporting into the enemy base and backdooring with no minions, while the entire enemy team rushes back and fails to stop you.

Some of these have aged into total obscurity and others still get typed in champion select every day. If there's one we've missed, or one you think deserves a place in the archive, drop it in the comments.

For the language players actually use in games now, the Terms Glossary is the place to go.

If you're after the pictures rather than the definitions, our April Fools meme gallery collects the ones the community was posting in 2021.