The League of Legends Amazon European (EU) Masters is around the corner once more, and it’s got the community talking about the different qualification slots in each region.
The EU Masters brings together the best teams from across the different European Regional Leagues (ERLs), including France’s LFL, Spain’s Superliga, DACH’s Prime League, the UK/Ireland/Nordics NLC and more.
Each ERL has a different number of slots for teams to progress to the EU Masters, which takes place twice per year. For example, the French LFL this year allows two teams to reach the play-ins stage, and another two teams to progress to the latter main stage (though it’s usually three teams that can progress, rather than four, but Karmine Corp won the EU Masters twice last year).
Others, like the Portuguese LPLOL, have two play-in slots and no main stage slots.
Several people from the UK and Nordics community are up in arms by the fact that the NLC has one play-in spot and one main stage spot, so two overall, while leagues like the Polish Ultraliga have four spots (two play-ins and two main stage).
While the NLC has relatively low viewership compared to the likes of the French and Spanish leagues, the region has produced some top talent in recent years, with two NLC sides reaching the EU Masters finals last year (Excel Esports academy and Fnatic academy respectively, though Fnatic moved from the NLC to the Spanish Superliga later last year).
With two slots available to the NLC, this means one of the top three NLC teams will definitely miss out on the EU Masters. Bifrost, X7 and JDXL, who recently finished in the top three of the NLC Spring Season 2022 Division 1 standings and hope to progress through the playoffs, finished the season with 14 wins and four losses each.
Some who took to Twitter to complain included LEC casters Caedrel and Nymaera, JDXL head coach Torok and more.
Riot’s esports product manager for ERLs and EU Masters, Filipe Borges, said Riot will review the format and slot distribution for 2023.
The EU Masters will feature 28 teams – 12 that will reach the main stage and 16 in the earlier play-ins stage.
Some teams have already qualified for the EU Masters, including Barcelona, the Spanish LoL side which features UK ADC player Deadly.
The full list of EU Masters slots per region are as follows, as per this EU Masters article on the LoL esports website:
- LFL: 2 Play-Ins, 2 Main Stage
- Ultraliga: 2 Play-Ins, 2 Main Stage
- Prime League: 1 Play-Ins, 2 Main Stage
- Superliga: 1 Play-Ins, 2 Main Stage
- NLC: 1 Play-Ins, 1 Main Stage
- EBL: 1 Play-Ins, 1 Main Stage
- PG Nationals: 1 Play-Ins, 1 Main Stage
- GLL: 1 Play-Ins, 1 Main Stage
- LPLOL: 2 Play-Ins
- Hitpoint Masters: 2 Play-Ins
- Elite Series: 2 Play-Ins
The EU Masters play-ins stage starts on April 4th 2022 and the grand final will be on May 7th 2022.
The news comes after Riot announced changes to LoL ERLs last year, including the standardising of different leagues.
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.
