Update (December 2021): The final teams have been announced:
Original article:
The ten teams for the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), the European Regional League (ERL) for the UK, Ireland and Nordics, have been locked in.
Nordic sides NYYRIKKI, Bifrost and Vanir, UK/Danish esports org Absolved and UK org MNM Gaming have progressed through the NLC Division 1 qualifier to reach the Spring 2022 NLC.
They will join 00 Nation (formerly known as Nordavind), BT Excel (the academy side of Excel Esports), Riddle, Singularity and Astralis Talent, who have already qualified for the NLC next year.
This means the UK sides in the NLC Division 1 next Spring will be MNM Gaming and BT Excel.
Originally the top six teams from NLC Summer 2021 were due to qualify automatically for Spring 2022, however Fnatic Rising recently announced they will be playing in the Spanish Superliga next year, while Astralis Talent acquired Tricked Esport’s League of Legends NLC spot. This means five teams made it through automatically and five came from the qualifier.
MNM Gaming beat X7 Esports, the Isle of Man’s first professional esports organisation who recently acquired UK organisation Bulldog Esports, in the qualifier playoffs to reach Division 1.
MNM Gaming co-founder Kalvin ‘KalKal’ Chung told Esports News UK: “I am delighted to see all the hard work from the MNM players and staff pay off, and it’s a pleasure to be one of the only two representatives for the UK in NLC Spring 2022.
“Thanks to everyone who voted us low on tier lists, it helped motivate us.
“ForTheFlame.”
X7 originally made it through to Division 2, but the organisation later acquired Absolved, and thus took a division 1 slot.
And Resolve, who acquired Barrage earlier this year and got to the NLC through Barrage’s spot in the league, have also qualified for Division 2 after beating Dusty.
Nine other teams from the NLC Division 1 qualifier will now play in the division 2 qualifier. These are: Dusty, Belfast Storm, London Esports, Team DeftFox, LDN UTD, Viperio, Lanomania, Munster Rugby Gaming and AaB Esport.
The division 2 qualifier is set to take place at the end of October.
Earlier this year, Freaks 4U Gaming was announced NLC tournament organiser, taking over duties from DreamHack.
There’s more info on the Division 1 qualifier results on Liquipedia.net and more info on the Division 2 and 3 brackets/scheduling on the NLC website 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.
