First NLC RPS winner announced as NLC Spring 2024 start date and relegation changes are confirmed

Dom Sacco, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 18/06/2025

Norwegian team Rich Gang (aka Rich Gangstas on Twitter) have won the first Northern League of Legends Regional Promotion Series (NLC RPS).

This tournament allows teams from the LoL national leagues in the UK, Ireland and Nordics and the NLC ladder to reach the NLC Division 2.

And NLC RPS finalists Rich Gang and Kaos Esport (both from the Norwegian Good Game Ligaen) have progressed to NLC Spring 2024 Division 2.

It was a close-fought RPS final between the two, with Rich Gang eventually taking the victory 3-2 in a full five-game series.

Rich Gang’s roster consisted of Quinncidence, Fallen, HawHaw, Mirbs and Touch, while Kaos’ was Crowno, Reflect, Zoiren, Certified and Eskii.

UK sides Tempest Gaming (winners of the UKEL this year) and Ruddy Painkillers (the academy team of Division 1 side Ruddy Esports) finished fifth in group A and reached the quarter-finals respectively.

Ruddy were knocked out by Kaos 2-0.

Touch said on the win: “I’m feeling good. We showed that Norway is the best region out of all the Scandinavian ones. We just put this team together with no scrims, so we showed up for the games and tried our best – and hope we’d outscale enemies individually.

“I wanted to get Rich Gang into the NLC Spring 2024 Division 2 and I think they will build their roster and staff members from scratch, now that they’re in it.”

The casters and their predictions for the first NLC RPS were as follows:

There’s more on the NLC RPS Fandom page for Spring 2024 here.

The news comes a few weeks after Freaks 4U stepped down as the NLC license holder, as prize pools, rulebook and promotions were revealed for 2024.

Aside from all this, who cares about Norwegian orgs winning the NLC RPS anyway, when we have UK caster Middlecott tweeting bangers like this:

NLC Spring 2024 start date and ERL relegation changes confirmed

The NLC Spring 2024 will kick off on Wednesday January 24th, Riot Games announced today.

It also revealed the start dates of other EMEA Regional Leagues (ERLs) in League of Legends:

Accredited ERLs

• Spanish Superliga: January 17th
• French LFL: January 17th
• German Prime League: January 17th
• Türkiye Championship League: January 18th

Non-Accredited ERLs

• Polish Ultraliga: January 16th
• Greek Legends League: January 23rd
• Benelux Elite Series: January 23rd
• Czech and Slovak Hitpoint Masters: January 23rd
• UK/Nordics NLC: January 24th
• Liga Portuguesa de League of Legends: January 25th
• League of Legends Italian Tournament: January 25th
• Esports Balkan League: January 31st
• Arabian League: January 31st

In terms of relegation changes, for accredited leagues, the lowest-place team from the 1st Division will compete against the best two teams from the 2nd Division in a seeded double-elimination tournament for the final spot.

For Non-Accredited leagues, the last-place team from the 1st Division will be joined by the best three teams from the 2nd Division in a similar seeded double-elimination tournament.

EMEA Masters 2024 info is set to follow at a later date.

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Dom Sacco, Senior Editor

Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He has almost two decades of experience in journalism, and left Esports News UK in June 2025. 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 also previously worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation.

All Posts By Dom Sacco