UK esports organisations Resolve and London Esports are withdrawing from the League of Legends NLC circuit – for the time being.
They both recently qualified for Division 2 of the 2022 Northern League Championship (NLC) – the European Regional League (ERL) for the UK, Ireland and Nordics – but have now decided to step back.
The withdrawal from the NLC doesn’t mean Resolve and London Esports are turning their back on League of Legends entirely – they may return to the UK scene in the future. Resolve are also keeping their Resolve Blue women’s team, but the academy team and first team are disbanding for now.
Resolve’s spot has gone to the next team that would have qualified – Nox Esports. And London’s spot has gone to Typical Boosted Animals.
Elsewhere, with Dusty moving from division 2 to 1 (see the section at the bottom of this article), Esports News UK understands Alpha Pack Esports have taken Dusty’s div 2 spot.
Resolve said in a statement: “Today, we are announcing that we’re taking a step back from the esport we began life in. This decision ultimately means Resolve will not compete in any division of the NLC for Spring 2022. Whilst League of Legends has been the foundation on which we built our organisation, we feel now is the right time to take this step back to allow us to re-assess and focus on other areas of the business.
“That said, we will continue our support for the women’s scene with a renewed focus in our Resolve Blue line-up for 2022. We are also in the later stages of developing a platform which will improve the level of coaching we provide for League of Legends players (with other games to follow) as well as the support we offer to coaches using it. More news on this soon.
“Finally, we want to thank everyone that has been part of our journey, supporting us over the years and we hope you will continue to follow us in to the next chapter of the story.”
London Esports said it was “not an easy decision to make but one we felt necessary to make”.
Resolve have been through a lot – both as an organisation and within League of Legends – this year.
Resolve acquired fellow UK esports organisation Barrage earlier this year and, in doing so, got to the NLC through Barrage’s spot in the league.
“Whilst League of Legends has been the foundation on which we built our organisation, we feel now is the right time to take this step back to allow us to re-assess and focus on other areas of the business.”
Resolve
Following this, DreamHack was replaced by Freaks 4U as organisers of the NLC, which announced a new ‘multi-division league ecosystem’. As part of this, some of the teams in the NLC – including Resolve – would need to requalify to reach division 1.
Resolve founder Ilias ‘Rai’ Pajoheshfar announced he was stepping back from esports for the foreseeable future, and soon afterwards, Barrage founder Jeff Simpkins returned to esports as operations director at Resolve. The org then made it to division 2 of the NLC, and now they are stepping back.
Ilias has now announced he is looking for a team to coach.
Other teams that have departed the NLC – and rules around selling spots
Resolve and London Esports aren’t the only esports organisations to withdraw from the NLC since the Freaks 4U changes were announced back in the summer.
Fnatic Rising left for the Spanish Superliga, Absolved left after X7 acquired their spot, Tricked departed once Astralis Talent took their slot, and 00Nation (formerly Nordavind) dropped out, with Dusty taking their spot. Enclave left the NLC, as did Nvision.
Nox have also left as of January 2022, though Esports News UK understands this was more down to personal reasons and prioritising family over business, than anything to do with the NLC.
Esports News UK understands other organisations may have been looking to exit.
Resolve were in talks with another NLC Division 1 organisation around purchasing their spot, but ultimately this didn’t happen.
Esports News UK understands teams can no longer sell or acquire spots in the NLC.
When Esports News UK asked NLC/Freaks 4U about this, they said in a statement: “Astralis sold the spot before we took over [as NLC organisers] and before the qualifiers took place. After the takeover, we decided for a performance-based system and especially in view of the short time window to no longer allow slot purchases.
“Instead, the teams that would have won the slot next according to their ranking – based on their performance – which is why X7 moved up first, followed by Dusty due to Absolved and Resolve withdrawing from the NLC respectively.”
NLC also posted this Twitter thread:
Resolve participate in another esport outside of League of Legends. Williams Resolve, the collaboration between UK racing team Williams and esports org Resolve, saw the org enter Rocket League earlier this year.
Related article: Singularity to field student-only team in 2022 NLC Division 1 after partnering with the University of Roehampton
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.
