Image edited and article fact-checked by ERL writer Megalodontus
The three major tiers of UK League of Legends esports have concluded their summer 2020 seasons and the playoffs have been confirmed.
Who will be fighting to emerge as victors? Who could be relegated? Dom Sacco provides a quick roundup below.
Tier 1: NLC
As expected by many, the academy rosters of LEC orgs Excel and Fnatic reached the top of NLC’s group A and group B respectively, with Fnatic Rising going unbeaten during the summer 2020 season.
Here are the final standings:
This means that Singularity and MNM will drop down into relegations, where they will eventually play against the top two teams from the Telia Masters – the competition between UK/Nordic national leagues and the NLC if you like. Those teams have not yet been determined. See more info on Leaguepedia’s NLC page.
For the playoffs, the top four teams in each group in the image above have advanced: BT Excel, Riddle, Nordavind and Godsent in group A, and Fnatic Rising, Tricked, Munster and Barrage in group B.
In the playoffs, BT Excel will play against Tricked and Fnatic Rising will face Riddle. Barrage and Munster will be facing Nordavind and Godsent – who will play against who depends on a tie-breaker between the latter two this weekend.
The finalists of the playoffs will qualify for the EU Masters. The winner will go straight to the main event group stage, while the runner-up will reach the EU Masters play-ins, for a chance to play in the main event.
The playoffs begin on August 4th at Twitch.tv/nlclol.
UK League of Legends summer 2020 roster roundup: All the NLC, UKLC and UKEL teams revealed
Tier 2: UKLC
It’s been an extremely competitive – and largely equal – summer 2020 season in the mid-tier UKLC.
Four teams ended with 9 wins and 5 losses (NVision, Demise, Munster academy and MNM academy) putting them in the top half of the table. Below them, Enclave and London had 8 wins and 6 losses, making it very tight at the top indeed.
But it was NVision that eventually won the split after winning the tiebreaker games.
At the bottom lie Barrage and Bulldog. They will soon face the top two teams from the lower-tier UKEL playoffs (more info on that in the UKEL section below). It’s been a disastrous split for Bulldog in particular, having failed to pick up a win.
The UKLC playoffs will take place this weekend:
Both finalists from these playoffs will qualify for the Telia Masters.
Here, they will face against the following teams in August:
- BuzzKill (Finland)
- KOVA (Finland)
- Excess Success (Iceland)
- XY Esports (Iceland)
- Granit Gaming (Sweden)
- UniQ (Sweden)
- Viking Esports (Norway)
- Nordavind Academy (Norway)
- Orgless ex-Vipers roster (Denmark)
- Plejehjemmet Kalder (Denmark)
The eventual top two in the Telia Masters will face Singularity and MNM for a chance to qualify for the higher-tier NLC.
Tier 3: UKEL
At the lower tier of UK League of Legends, Resolve took the top spot with 6 wins and 1 loss.
They will be joined by NerdRage, LDN UTD and Viperio in the UKEL playoffs which take place on August 1st at 3pm at Twitch.tv/UK_EL.
According to an earlier UKEL announcement, the top two teams from these playoffs will then face off against the two bottom teams from the UKLC (Barrage Academy and Bulldog) in a best of five series to see who will be promoted and who will be relegated.
This UKLC Relegation Series is scheduled to take place on August 23rd and 24th.
As for relegations, Revenge and Vector (the bottom two teams in the UKEL) will face off against two up and coming teams. There’s more info on this below.
You can see the UKEL final standings here:
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.
