EU Masters Spring 2021 grand finalists and UK representatives BT Excel will not be taking part in the Summer tournament after losing 2-1 to Riddle in the NLC playoffs.
It’s been a week of shocks in the UK/Nordics League of Legends ERL (European Regional League), the NLC, this week, with the playoffs causing some upsets.
BT Excel lost 2-1 to Riddle in round one, with Singularity also defeating Nordavind 2-1 after somehow defending their nexus in a tense moment.
Then, in the upper bracket, Tricked pulled off a 2-1 upset against Fnatic Rising, knocking Fnatic’s academy team into the lower bracket. In doing so, Tricked have qualified for the EU Masters Summer 2021 tournament, with at least a play-ins slot. If they win against the finalist, they will qualify directly to the main event.
Fnatic Rising will now take on Singularity on Tuesday August 3rd 2021. The winner of this match will face Tricked in the final, and also qualify for the EU Masters along with them.
The winner of the NLC playoffs final will qualify for the EU Masters main event stage, while the runner-up will qualify for play-ins.
If Fnatic fail to beat Singularity on Tuesday, it could be the very first NLC final – and EU Masters tournament – without a UK-based LEC academy team there, as highlighted by British LoL caster Aux:
The EU Masters brings the top teams from all the European Regional Leagues in League of Legends, and acts as one tier below the LEC level (though there is no way to promote from EU Masters to LEC, as LEC is obviously a franchised league where teams buy their way in).
Riot this week also announced changes to the ERLs, with some regions merging.
Last month, Team BDS acquired Schalke 04’s LEC slot for €26.5m. This weekend is also the final week of the LEC Summer 2021 season before playoffs.
Elsewhere, in the UK tier below NLC, London Esports won the Summer 2021 UKLC on Monday after a thrilling final versus MNM Gaming. And in the tier below that, it’s the UKEL finals taking place this weekend.
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.
