The Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), the European Regional League (ERL) for the UK, Ireland and Nordics, has completed its Spring 2022 Division 1 season.
The teams that have progressed to the playoffs (in order, from top bottom) are: Bifrost, X7 Esports, JDXL (Excel Esports academy team), Dusty, Vanir and Riddle Esports.
The final standings are as follows:
X7 had topped the table for most of the season, but had an unexpected final two weeks, with one win and three losses in their last four games. They beat Dusty, before losing to Bifrost, Vanir and Astralis Talent.
These results meant that Bifrost, X7 and JDXL tied at the top of the table, each with 14 wins and four losses, but in first, second and third respectively, due to tiebreaker rules. You can see the NLC rules in full here.
Those who have missed out on playoffs are Astralis Talent, Nyyrikki, MNM Gaming and Team Singularity.
Looking at the standings, the top three are very much the teams you’d expect to be up there.
UK esports organisation Excel Esports have historically done well in the UK/Nordics ERL, and reached an EU Masters final last year.
Relative newcomers X7 Esports, from the Isle of Man, have also spoken of their ambitions, telling Esports News UK in this X7 Esports interview that they want to eventually reach the LEC.
They were top of the standings for most the season, and only one team beat them twice – Bifrost.
These top six sides will be looking to progress through the playoffs to reach the EU Masters, a tournament that pits the top teams across the European Regional Leagues against each other. There are two EU Masters slots available to NLC teams.
The Spring 2022 EU Masters, which was sponsored by Amazon last year, starts on April 4th 2022 with the play-in stage, and finishes with the grand finals on May 8th.
Looking outside of the top six, some would say Astralis Talent have underachieved somewhat, given they’re also an academy roster of an LEC organisation. Head coach Donby said the team are focused on staying positive and improving for the future:
In terms of promotions and relegations between Division 1 and 2, changes were made here last year, when Freaks4U was appointed tournament operator of the NLC – the existing UKLC was scrapped and the upper-tier NLC adopted a multi-division ecosystem like the DACH Prime League has.
There is now one promotion tournament per year, taking place in autumn, so the bottom-tier NLC Division 1 sides will not be relegated this season.
The NLC Spring 2022 playoffs are due to take place next week, from March 14th. Bifrost and X7 head to round two, as top seeds, while the other four playoff teams will start in round one.
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.
