The Best League of Legends VPN in 2022: Low Latency & Ultra Fast Speeds
Do you want to play a game of League of Legends every once in a while, even when the network you’re connected to doesn’t allow you to? A League of Legends VPN lets you bypass such a block and fight for lane control.
League of Legends is an incredibly popular game. The average number of people playing it on a monthly basis hovers around 125 million, which isn’t much of a surprise considering how well-thought-out the game is. It’s simple to get into, yet addictive enough that it makes you spend hours on end thinking through tactics and play styles. A League of Legends VPN can let you do that even when your network won’t allow it.
That being said, there are several reasons why you might not be able to play League of Legends. Your school almost certainly won’t let you access LoL servers, and you might be met with the same problem at home. If that’s the case, you’re probably looking for a way to access League of Legends, and what you need is a VPN.
Key Takeaways:
- A League of Legends VPN can help you bypass network blocks imposed by your school or your parents.
- The best VPN for League of Legends is ExpressVPN, with blazing-fast speeds and minimal impact on latency.
- NordVPN is a great alternative, with very low latencies and reasonable pricing.
- Surfshark, CyberGhost and Mullvad will all save you some money, but might impact performance and gameplay a bit more.
There are multiple VPN services that will let you play League of Legends despite a network block by tunneling your connection through their servers before connecting to the LoL gaming servers. ExpressVPN is the best tool for the job, but there are other options you should consider too, so read on.
Yes, you can play League of Legends with a VPN. Doing so has an impact on speed and latency, so we would recommend playing with a VPN that has high speeds and a latency as low as possible.
The best free VPNs for League of Legends are Windscribe and ProtonVPN. Keep in mind that Windscribe comes with a 10GB data limit, whereas ProtonVPN will limit your speeds on the free plan.
No — if you use the VPN only to bypass a network block or add security to your connection, you can’t get banned from League of Legends.
Top VPNs for League of Legends
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$6.39 / month30-day money-back guarantee
What Makes the Best League of Legends VPN
VPNs aren’t primarily made to bypass network restrictions so you can play League of Legends, but they’re the perfect solution for that. Not every VPN is equal, however, and there are some crucial differences between the best options. All of the VPNs below will do a great job at unblocking League of Legends.
- ExpressVPN — Fastest VPN, but expensive
- NordVPN — Low-latency VPN with solid speeds and great security
- Surfshark — Great value VPN provider with solid speeds
- CyberGhost — Affordable VPN provider with plenty of server locations
- Mullvad — Very secure VPN that covers the basics
The first thing to know about gaming VPNs is that faster is always better. Most school networks, as well as some home internet provider solutions, won’t give you impressive speeds. Adding a VPN to your connection will make things a bit slower, but the faster the VPN, the less of an impact you’ll notice. This way, you won’t be left in the lobby while the rest of your teammates are picking heroes.
Then you have latency, which is just as important as speed. Latency is the time it takes the signal to reach the game’s servers and then get back to you. When you introduce the VPN server to this path, that latency gets worse. How much worse depends on the VPN you choose, which is why low-latency VPNs are better if you want to play League of Legends.
The third factor you should consider is security. A reliable VPN will let you access servers with an encrypted connection, keeping your personal data secure. It should also offer additional benefits like split tunneling and a kill switch to protect you from DDoS attacks.
The 5 Best VPNs for League of Legends
We picked the best League of Legends VPNs using the criteria above, but we also factored in things like ease of use, overall feature set and of course, pricing. With that in mind, here are the best VPNs you can use to access your favorite LoL game server.
1. ExpressVPN
More details about ExpressVPN:
- Pricing: $6.67 per month for the yearly plan, plus three months free
- Provider website: expressvpn.com
Pros:
- Blazing-fast speeds
- Low latency on nearby servers
- Easy-to-use apps
Cons:
- Expensive
ExpressVPN has become a resident in our list of best VPNs, and it’s not really a surprise to see it take the top spot here. When it comes to speed, it holds the title for the fastest VPN, which means that playing League of Legends will be an excellent experience. ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol further improves speed and security, and you can read more about it on our ExpressVPN review.
As far as latency is concerned, ExpressVPN didn’t fail to impress us. Compared to an unprotected connection, ExpressVPN increased the latency a mere 1.13x, from 23ms to 26ms. This is when connected to a U.S. server, and we also noticed that consistency during testing was excellent too. Keep in mind that connecting to servers that are farther away will introduce increased latency, but this is something all VPNs have in common.
Lightway Protocol to Increase Speed and Reliability
Lightway is ExpressVPN’s take on a fast and reliable VPN protocol. It was built from the ground up with the wolfSSL cryptography library, which allows for a very lightweight protocol — about 2,000 lines of code. This makes sure the impact on speed and latency is minimal, making it perfect for League of Legends. We covered it in a bit more detail in our ExpressVPN Lightway review.
The only downside of ExpressVPN is pricing — it’s expensive, especially when compared to some of its close competitors. But if price isn’t something you’re concerned about, you’re getting a top-notch experience in every possible aspect, and you have a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that it’s not your cup of tea.
2. NordVPN
More details about NordVPN:
- Pricing: $3.71 per month for the two-year plan
- Provider website: nordvpn.com
Pros:
- Very low latencies
- Built-in ad blocker
- Strong security features
Cons:
- Inconsistent speeds
True, NordVPN is second on our list, but this was as close of a fight as it gets. Speed-wise, NordVPN is just as good as our top contender, and the deciding factor in this case was the latency. Unlike ExpressVPN, NordVPN almost doubled our latency, from 13ms to 25ms, which is still an excellent result — just not as good as ExpressVPN.
NordVPN has an excellent feature set, and some of the more notable features include a very strict no-logs policy, DNS leak protection, split tunneling and a network of servers that keeps growing. The desktop app is very intuitive too, which is more than can be said for some of its competitors (looking at you, Mullvad). You can find out more in our NordVPN review.
Play League With An Obfuscated VPN Server
NordVPN’s forte is certainly security, and it goes a long way to provide protection for its users by offering obfuscated servers. It uses complex algorithms to bypass any VPN-blocking firewalls, and NordVPN explains how they work fairly well. If you love battle royale games, NordVPN is one of the best Warzone VPN services.
If you want to get a good deal for NordVPN, you should be subscribing to the two-year plan. It gets you an affordable price, and if you decide it’s not what you expected, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
3. Surfshark
More details about Surfshark:
- Pricing: $2.30 per month for the two-year plan, plus two months free
- Provider website: surfshark.com
Pros:
- Low latency
- Unlimited simultaneous connections
- Multi-hop servers for additional security
Cons:
- Expensive on the monthly plan
Most VPNs tend to restrict your usage, whether by limiting the number of simultaneous connections or imposing a data limit or speed limit. Surfshark goes against the grain and gives you unlimited simultaneous connections, unlimited data and unlimited speed. To add to this, you have protection from DDoS attacks, as well as a simple UI on desktop OSs. You can find out more about it in our Surfshark review.
A welcome addition to Surfshark’s feature set is the multi-hop servers. Rather than routing your connection through one VPN server, it routes it through two, which adds a bit more security.
Keep in mind this will introduce additional latency. Considering that Surfshark increased our latency from 19ms to 29ms when tunneling through a second U.S. server, you can use multi-hop servers and still get a good gaming experience.
Unlimited Simultaneous Connections & Data
If you want to have two teams of five players each fighting in Summoner’s Rift with a single VPN subscription, you can do that with Surfshark, thanks to the unlimited simultaneous connections. You also get unlimited data, even though League of Legends uses very little of it when you’re gaming, and there is unlimited bandwidth as well.
Price-wise, Surfshark is very affordable, provided you subscribe for an extended period of time (or you share your subscription with others). Read our Surfshark setup guide to learn how to use the VPN. Thankfully, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, though, if you don’t like playing League of Legends with it.
- : Unlimited GB bandwidth,Unlimited devices
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4. CyberGhost
More details about CyberGhost:
- Pricing: $2.15 per month for the three-year plan, plus three months free
- Provider website: cyberghostvpn.com
Pros:
- Very affordable pricing
- Specialty gaming servers
- Apps for most platforms
Cons:
- Mediocre performance on OpenVPN
If you want an affordable VPN and don’t mind staying subscribed for a while, CyberGhost should be perfect. It’s got a huge server network that includes gaming-specific servers, and does a great job at keeping latency low — provided you pick the right protocol, that is. You can find out more in our CyberGhost review.
Using CyberGhost with OpenVPN wasn’t an experience we’d recommend if you want to tunnel through a VPN server when playing League of Legends. However, switching to IKEv2, we got significantly better (and more consistent) results, with our latency increasing from 18ms to just 28ms.
Gaming-Specific Servers
CyberGhost offers a list of gaming servers that will offer you the best latency, making it a great League of Legends and Fortnite VPN. When you access the list, you’ll notice that each server shows a predicted latency. While this might have a margin of error, it’s a good indicator of what you can expect when you connect to the game server through CyberGhost.
Being one of the best cheap VPNs, CyberGhost is incredibly affordable, but only if you’re willing to stay subscribed for three years. In addition, CyberGhost is the only VPN provider on our list that will give you a 45-day money-back guarantee, with competitors offering 30 days at most.
5. Mullvad
More details about Mullvad:
- Pricing: $6 per month
- Provider website: mullvad.net
Pros:
- Secure signup process
- Solid speeds
- Reasonable latency
Cons:
- Desktop app isn’t exactly intuitive
Not everyone needs all the bells and whistles a VPN provider could offer, which is why Mullvad is a great choice for users who are only interested in playing League of Legends. Security is excellent, it has a strong focus on protecting user data and latency increased from 15ms to just 24ms, which is excellent in our opinion.
However, when you start looking into its feature set, Mullvad just fails to impress. You have 65 VPN server locations in 38 countries, a strict no-logs policy and a kill switch, but that’s it. With most of the competitors, you get a lot more servers and a lot more features, which is something we cover in our Mullvad VPN review.
Privacy-Focused Signup Process
Most VPNs claim to not store any of the user data you provide, but Mullvad goes even further by not asking you to provide any user data at all. You don’t need an email address to sign up for Mullvad, and if you’re really set on keeping your data private, you can mail the VPN provider cash for your subscription.
Mullvad isn’t as cheap as some of the other VPNs on our list, but arguably even worse is the fact that you don’t get a discount if you stick around. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you don’t like it, but unfortunately it doesn’t apply if you chose to mail them a cash payment or paid in cryptocurrency.
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Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, ExpressVPN is the best League of Legends VPN, thanks to its excellent speeds, reasonably low latency and strong security features. NordVPN gets you latencies that are just as good, while Surfshark and CyberGhost will save you a bit of money too (read our CyberGhost vs Surfshark comparison to see how the two compare.
Whichever one of the above you choose to go for, you’ll enjoy the ability to play League of Legends despite network blocks — the same can be said if you’re looking for a Minecraft VPN or FFXIV VPN, too.
To add to this, you’ll get a more secure connection with your data kept away from the prying eyes of internet providers and your school’s IT admins, provided you’re not using the worst VPN provider. A good VPN helps sidestep ISP throttling, which causes your internet connection to slow down, ruining your gaming experience.
What’s your pick for a League of Legends VPN? Does ExpressVPN win you over with its blazing-fast speeds, or do you prefer something more affordable, like Surfshark and CyberGhost? Let us know in the comments below, and as always, thank you for reading.
