The first four UK League of Legends teams have qualified for the £20,000 Multiplay UK Masters league which was announced earlier in September.
ESL UK Premiership regulars Excel Esports, TCA and MnM (playing under a different name – the lord’s prayer) and a mix team called Distrikt have all qualified from the first online qualifier. You can see the bracket here.
Distrikt features players including former Origen ADC Toaster, Candyfloss, Literal Autist (Nihir Vedd, who was just standing in for one game, dewekS (Caedrel), Phaxi and Tore H Eilertsen (Norskeren).
The next open qualifier takes place on October 3rd. Teams signed up for that so far include Last Remedy, Team Sublime, Sensei and U Watt Bruh?
Confusingly, Toaster is listed as a player for Last Remedy and Distrikt, however he assures us he is playing for Last Remedy in the ESL UK Premiership and Distrikt for the UK Masters and i-series. He may be listed on both because he originally signed up with Last Remedy before this was announced.
There are other familiar names in the tournament, including Brixton on Sensei and Rayunmort on U Watt Bruh?
Also, although Sensei were beaten 2-0 by TCA in the first qualifier, they are listed as a team taking part in the second qualifier.
Riot Games community specialists Ben “Draggles” Forbes and John “Bolton” King recently took to Twitter to mention the lack of UK teams signed up for the event, and to encourage more to participate.
salty UK tweets incoming
— Ben / Draggles (@bedraggles) September 25, 2016
1: I’ve heard it a lot – there’s no money in UK, what’s the point in finding a team because the payoff isn’t enough – seems to be #1 reason
— Ben / Draggles (@bedraggles) September 25, 2016
2: Then @UKMasters comes up and offers a £20k prizepool and we get 9 teams? Seriously? There are some Premiership teams not signed up here
— Ben / Draggles (@bedraggles) September 25, 2016
3: What about all @theNUEL teams? Even if it’s the start of a year each uni will still have players floating around, surely?
— Ben / Draggles (@bedraggles) September 25, 2016
4: @MultiplayEsport is putting money where YOUR mouths are and you’re all pic.twitter.com/go7bBmyPmC
— Ben / Draggles (@bedraggles) September 25, 2016
5 (final): As always I will be RTing any UK teams LF players and players LF teams, I want this scene to grow as much as you do. ukmasters.gg
— Ben / Draggles (@bedraggles) September 25, 2016
Any players not signed up for this or the @ESLUK Prem forfeit all #ukscene complaining rights for the next 6 months 😛 https://t.co/wnZDNdvJqw
— John King (@BoltonLoL) September 25, 2016
Other UK Masters tournaments include CSGO and Hearthstone (those links go to the brackets pages for the first respective qualifiers).
We’ll keep you updated with those who progress from the second sets of qualifiers.
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.
