Fnatic and Excel reach the UKLC grand final and qualify for the EU Masters

Two League of Legends LEC academy teams will face-off in the UKLC grand final next week.

Fnatic Rising and BT Excel progressed through the semi-finals yesterday evening and in doing so, have also qualified for the European (EU) Masters.

While many would have expected Fnatic and Excel to emerge as the dominant two sides in the UK & Ireland League of Legends competition, their semi-final opponents still stood as worthy opposition.

BT Excel beat NVision Esports 2-0 in the first semi-final, while Fnatic Rising defeated Barrage Esports 2-0 in the second.

However, Barrage came very close to causing an upset in game one, with Flaresz leading the charge as Riven in the top-lane. While he had a fantastic start and picked up some key kills, he unfortunately for Barrage failed to emerge as the overall carry and lift his team to victory in the late-game.

We asked Barrage Esports’ veteran League of Legends players Flaresz and Hadow to interview each other – here’s what happened

In game two, Barrage looked deflated from the sucker punch in game one and Fnatic took advantage of that to secure the series.

Excel continued their undefeated run and will now look to keep this going when they face Fnatic in the UKLC grand final on March 29th.

The finals will take place online due to the situation around COVID-19.

The EU Masters gets underway on April 6th. It brings together the top League of Legends from across the eight different European Regional Leagues (ERLs), including Spain, France, Balkans, Italy, Nordics, Poland, as well as the UK & Ireland and the Germany/Austria/Switzerland territory.

Riot recently announced it is bringing the production of the EU Masters in-house. It was previously hosted by ESL, but now it will be produced by the team responsible for the LEC.

Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the EU Masters Spring 2020 Season will be played online-only.

Elsewhere, in the lower-tier division UKEL, the playoffs have been postponed:

Last year, Fnatic Rising secured the domestic quadruple.

Dom Sacco

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.