UK esports organisation LDN UTD have become the latest team to reassess their strategy regarding the new UK/Ireland/Nordics League of Legends NLC Division 2.
The players on their roster are now LFT (looking for teams), leaving LDN UTD’s position in the NLC a little up in the air.
In an update video on Twitter, LDN UTD CEO Oliver Weingarten did say that the organisation’s “committment to League of Legends is unwavering”, however due to rule changes they would not have a chance to be promoted until Spring 2023, and are now assessing their strategy.
“We felt it’d be the best option to be honest with the players and give them a chance to see if there would be another option for them to play competitively this year,” he said. “We have to look at what makes sense for the business.”
Olly did also say LDN UTD will be back with further news as the situation develops.
He’s right – Division 2 NLC teams do not have a chance to reach Division 1 until spring 2023. That’s because, like the DACH Prime League, the NLC now only has one Division 1 promotion tournament each year.
As per the format info on the NLC website: “At the end of the Division 1 summer split, the two highest placed Division 2 teams on championship points will fight for their chance to be promoted to Division 1 against the two lowest ranked teams from the top division.”
However, there is a promotion/relegation tournament for Division 2 and Division 3 twice per year.
We understand this rule change isn’t sudden, though it wasn’t super prominent from Freaks 4U’s initial announcement: Freaks 4U took over organising duties of the NLC from DreamHack earlier this summer, and made changes to the format, including the introduction of a multi-division format and the scrapping of the old UKLC.
Other organisations have recently departed the revised NLC circuit, including London Esports and Resolve, who recently dropped out of NLC Division 2.
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 have also left the NLC, as have Nvision. And Singularity is fielding a student-only team in Division 1.
Esports News UK is going to take a deeper dive into why teams are dropping out and how the scene is changing in a separate article soon. One of the obvious reasons teams may be dropping out is the absence of a prize pool in Division 2 and below, as well as a reportedly lower prize pool in Division 1 compared to previous seasons.
LDN UTD previously won the lower-tier UKEL earlier this summer.
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.
