The Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), the European Regional League (ERL) for the UK, Ireland and Nordics, has announced the new Aurora Open.
This is a Pro-Am (professional/amateur) tournament. Riot first said all ERLs will host their own pro-am tournaments from 2022 onwards in its update about changes to LoL ERLs from October 2021.
There are five divisions in the NLC, and 32 teams across all five will get the chance to play in this Aurora Open tournament, which aims to bring both pro players and amateurs together. Division 1 and 2 teams will automatically qualify.
Casters for the official broadcast are as follows:
There will be broadcast partners including the EUniverse, who has a strong Aurora Open talent line-up on board, including Noa, DonJake, Middlecott, Carmeline, Solari, Jreal and more. Eldorado and Rate Gaming are also broadcast partners.
€10,000 and a trophy will be up for grabs, with €4,000 going to the winner, €2,000 to the runner-up, €1,000 each to third and fourth, and fifth to eighth place teams will each receive €500.
The first Aurora Open qualifier will get underway on September 3rd and 4th 2022, as revealed in this post on the NLC website, with the second on September 10th and 11th, and a closed qualifier (featuring the best sides from the open qualifiers) will run on September 17th and 18th.
“During the group stage, matches will be played simultaneously and therefore also be broadcasted simultaneously, so prepare for lots of action and a very special broadcast experience.”
NLC
According to rule 3.1.13, “teams from the same organisation are not allowed to participate in the same Pro-Am tournament – organisations will be required to declare which of their teams will represent them in the Pro-Am”.
The best-of-one double round robin group stage will run from October 5th to 12th, the best-of-three round of 16 from October 17th to 25th and the best-of-three quarter finals from October 26th to November 4th.
The best-of-five semi-finals and grand final will run from November 7th to 13th 2022.
Qualifiers will be off-stream, but the main stage will be broadcast on the NLC Twitch and YouTube channels.
Pro-ams are relatively rare in esports and League of Legends. Insomnia Gaming Festival held League Fest back in 2016, which featured pro and amateur League of Legends players, like Joekerism and LemonNation.
“During the group stage, matches will be played simultaneously and therefore also be broadcasted simultaneously, so prepare for lots of action and a very special broadcast experience,” the NLC said.
“Updates regarding the tournament and possible changes for the Winter Split will be communicated as soon as they are final, so keep an eye open and check our website on NLC.gg or our Twitter account.
“Sign-ups for the Aurora Open will open soon, so stay tuned.”
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.
