User blog comment:Degritone/Splitting the Rival Section/@comment-25003900-20141204151452

The Webster-Merriam Dictionary defines "Rival" as a person who tries to defeat or be more successful than another. Alternatively as "One striving for competitive advantage."

So I would say that "Rival" still fits quite well as by definition they do not have to be working towards the same goal to be rivals. For further justification a synonym for "Rival" is "Counterpart". I would say that fits Swain and J4, as well as a number of others that use "Rival" instead of "Enemy". While I don't argue that in most cases "Enemy" would be more fitting, in League of Legends, wars are now decided on the fields of justice rather than the fields of battle and as such "Rival" becomes a more fitting term to use because they aren't "killing" each other, but instead are in competition with each other to settle political disputes.

In short, when you apply the actual lore behind League of Legends, their terminology is properly used.