The applications for the League of Legends NLC (UK and Nordic region) Division 1 qualifier have closed, and the 16 teams have been announced.
Half of these are UK and Ireland organisations, including LDN UTD, London Esports, Munster Rugby Gaming, Belfast Storm, MNM Gaming, Resolve, Viperio and X7 Esports, who recently acquired UK org Bulldog and brought founder Newts on board as director of esports.
You can see the full list here:
The news comes after NLC revealed more details of the League of Legends Northern Europe calibration phase, and Freaks 4U Gaming was announced NLC tournament organiser, taking over duties from DreamHack.
The top six teams of the NLC Summer 2021 Split have been automatically seeded into the new first division of NLC. This includes Tricked, Singularity, BT Excel, Nordavind, Riddle and Fnatic Rising. However, Fnatic Rising recently announced they will be playing in the Spanish Superliga next year, with Astralis Talent stepping into the NLC.
Division 1 and 2 will each include 10 teams. This means the top four sides from the division 1 qualifier will progress to the top division, joining the likes of BT Excel.
Esports News UK understands a few other teams in the NLC may be stepping back. One has announced their departure already: Kova Esports.
Kova said: “After the Summer split we heard the news: The ecosystem is going to change a lot, and we were exploring options to continue with LoL, but after careful thinking we decided that this was our time to go.
“We would like to thank all our players and coaches and fans who have been a part of our journey. Maybe in the future we’ll meet at the Rift again.”
The division 1 qualifier and playoff stage will begin in October. There’s also a separate open qualifier, with the best teams advancing to the division 2 qualifier, taking place at the end of October.
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.
