Riot Games has today announced a new EMEA Champions Queue for high-level League of Legends players, but it’s not for those in non-accredited leagues.
This means players in the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC), the EMEA Regional League for the UK, Ireland, Nordics and Malta, will not be able to participate in the EMEA Champions Queue.
The news comes after the NLC was demoted to a non-accredited league a couple of months ago. When this was announced, Riot said the NLC may have been able to have ten instead of eight teams due to some factors (but in the end eight teams were confirmed).
Because of this, Esports News UK reached out to Riot, and a spokesperson today confirmed to us the EMEA Champions Queue will not be available for players in non-accredited leagues, but that the team behind EMEA Champions League ‘will be closely monitoring the success of the program’.
The news also comes as Riot Games separately announced a Spanish co-streaming trial with Koi and Team Heretics for the LEC 2023 Winter Split.
About EMEA Champions Queue
The new Champions Queue (CQ) is for LEC and accredited EMEA Regional League players to practice in an invite-only, ‘enhanced and competitive environment’, Riot said in its announcement post.
The queue is for LEC starting line-up players, LEC subs (Grandmaster or higher), accredited ERL starting line-up players, and players who have previously competed in the LEC for at least one season (again, must be Grandmaster or higher).
An EMEA CQ Player Council will be established a few weeks after launch, which will get voting powers on who has access to EMEA CQ, and if any player should be revoked access due to disciplinary reasons, for example.
Riot said:
“EMEA Champions Queue will let players practice in a high-quality, solo queue-like environment where they can all focus on leveling-up their skills.”
Riot Games
“It provides automatic lobby creation as well as voice communication channels and match reporting. All eligible players will be invited to a private Discord server that will schedule, track and organise games between players. There will also be a leaderboard system that can be viewed by fans coming soon.”
Champions Queue launches in EMEA on January 24th 2023, and comes after the North American Champions Queue launched a year ago, in February 2022.
The EMEA Champions Queue first split will run until February 23rd 2023. Others will run from Feb 28th to Mar 31st, around MSI 2023 (dates TBC), from May 30th to June 30th and then July 4th to August 11th.
It will be active on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays in a single four hour block per day, from 22:00-02:00 CET.
NLC woes
This is the latest in a line of disappointing news for NLC talent and viewers, with the NLC not having a studio broadcast this year, fewer financial stipends for teams and fewer broadcast talent than before.
Many teams have left the NLC ecosystem in the last few years, and a statement from LoL esports veteran Diamondprox claiming he hadn’t been paid six months of salary by Bifrost made for difficult and concerning reading.
But with the NLC Spring 2023 Division 1 start date around the corner on January 24th, some in the scene – including ourselves – are trying to remain optimistic for the league, which is produced by Riot partner Freaks 4U.
Response to EMEA Champions Queue announcement
Some reacted favourably to the news, including British LEC caster Caedrel, who was recently announced as part of the LEC 2023 broadcast talent line-up:
Irish caster Oisin Molloy had a question around co-streaming: “Can people co-stream the games and how can they go about doing it? Would love to see streams in all languages getting to bring these games to the community.”
Others reacting specifically to the accredited ERL players only rule, included UK caster Jamada, who said: “Maaaan with the NLC just lost its accredited status meaning our players in the league can’t compete. Besides that, super excited for the champs queue finally being implemented in EU, I hope it’s utilised by everyone that can use it and we get banger content from it.”
Former Team Vitality analyst Noodlez added:
“Great news but non-accredited ERLs are getting ignored as always, creating an even bigger disparity between players from the same region.”
Noodlez
“At the current state of EMEA CQ, the chances of a promising player from non-accredited ERL to get noticed are even lower than before.”
EU LoL expert Veteran commented: “Two immediate points: 1) The exclusion of NLC and other Non-Accredited tier 1 ERLs is very suspect. There’s a ton of strong players excluded this way. 2) Info on the possibility of co-streaming these would be lovely. I’d do it every day if made available.”
UK caster Initialise said: “Awesome addition to the EMEA system, especially with how well received the Challenger races etc have been lately. That said, I echo what a lot of my colleagues have said about NLC having no access – salt in the wound having lost accreditation.”
Recent LoL news: LoL Mastery Chart: How to get a visual breakdown of your most-played champions in League of Legends
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.
