A few months ago, the National University Esports League’s (NUEL) ESL UK Premiership League of Legends team was in a spot of bother.
Since then, some solid rebuilding work has turned helped this superteam into a squad worthy of its name.
After Trashclub Billy and Dynasty left the NUEL, and the team was forced to forfeit a match against Team Infused, management worked hard to turn things around during the ESL UK mid-season break.
Having a pool of more than 350 university teams gives the NUEL incredible, exciting potential.
And on October 31st, the NUEL announced a fresh new roster and management team.
“The whole organisation was rebuilt from the ground up, with new management and support staff, and more importantly new players,” Dowsey and Balint told eSports News UK in a joint statement.
“The NUEL5 team is about promoting known players from the NUEL and showing off up and coming talent; LADT Rayunmort and Viktorio are both new to The NUEL with this being their first year competing in the tournament.
“Viktorio is a fresher and jumped at the chance of playing for the NUEL when we put out tryouts. LADT Rayunmort is an exchange student from ECE Paris, ‘Graduate School of Engineering’ in France.”
Rayunmort made some impressive plays as Anivia in particular in yesterday’s match against Terra Cotta Army, which the NUEL won 2-1. He made a fantastic Baron “save” to help his team win the third game. Check out our highlights in this video below:
Dowsey and Balint continued: “Both Droolio and Mazrim are staple players within The NUEL, having many memes created around their team – Droolio and the Gang (famed for their 5 man TP strats during The NUEL Summer Tournament). Both players have stepped up to the plate and taken on the responsibility of representing the organisation at a higher level.
“ShavenTortoise was the only player to stick with NUEL5 after the team fell apart during the mid season break, and has also been a star player on Portsmouth White, within The NUEL tournament as well. His shotcalling abilities has helped the team focus their macro level play.
“Frozen Dawn has been an avid member of the NUEL for several years, playing in previous seasons, known for his off-meta picks such as Nocturne Mid.
“With a couple of years of coaching experience under his belt, recently coaching Nottingham Bears in Riot’s Summer Break Collegiate Invitational, he’s been instrumental in getting the players into shape in such a short time. Even choosing to not to play in the NUEL’s tournament so he could commit full time to coaching the team.”
The story behind the UK’s National University Esports League
What Dowsey and Balint say are right – this team has been formed to take the NUEL to the next level. And after this week’s display, they’ve shown they can do just that.
Perhaps in the next ESL UK Premiership, they can fight their way to become a solid mid-table or even top-half side.
Check out the full new team and management setup below:
Team roster:
Haider “Viktorio” Hussain – Top Lane
Stuart “ShavenTortoise” Russell – Jungle
Marc “LADT Rayunmort” Bertrandias – Mid
Dan “Droolz” Crawford – Marksman
Mazrim – Support
Management:
Josh “NUEL Josh” Williams – Owner
Bálint “Balint” Kiss-Tóth – Manager
Joshua “Dowsey” Dowse – Manager
Will “Frozen Dawn” Burgess- Head Coach
Doruk “DrGreasymeat” Hacioglu- Assistant Coach
An interview with the NUEL founder Josh Williams – Part 2
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
