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Los Ratones, the all-star League of Legends team formed by popular British streamer Caedrel, have reached the Arozzi NLC Winter playoffs along with Nord Esports.
The rats have won all of their four games so far, and in doing so, have topped group A.
Nord, meanwhile, have won three and lost one (to Los Ratones).
They’re both top seeds going into the playoffs, which start on January 29th 2025 and end with the grand final on March 9th. See the NLC 2025 Winter schedule here for more dates.
The other three teams in Group A, Bulldog Esports, Lundqvist Lightside and Verdant, are tied with one win and three losses each. This means they will play a three-way tie tomorrow (Friday January 24th).
Group B will be decided this evening from 6pm CET.
Rich Gang are currently top with 2-0, Kaos bottom with 0-2, and Venomcrest, DMG and The Ruddy Sack all tied at 1-1 so far.
The group B match-ups tonight are:
- DMG vs Rich Gang
- Kaos vs Venomcrest
- The Ruddy Sack vs DMG
- Rich Gang vs Kaos
- Venomcrest vs The Ruddy Sack
How Los Ratones went 4-0 and Nord went 3-1 to reach the NLC Winter 2025 playoffs
Caedrel’s team Los Ratones picked up wins over Nord and Lundqvist Lightside last week, and Bulldog and Verdant last night.
They were dominant over Nord, going 20/7 in 26 minutes, and 25-8 in the same time against LLS.
This week, a 22-12 win over Bulldog in 28 minutes carried on that form. However, they faced a tough test against Verdant, who were on top of Los Ratones in the early game, 4-0 ahead at 12 minutes but only a couple of thousand gold ahead.
Verdant were 9-1 ahead at 20 minutes and looked like they would win. But Los Ratones managed to keep the gold split relatively close, and after taking the Baron and winning some fights at the 30-minute mark, they stormed Verdant’s base to maintain their perfect record in the NLC so far.
“Early game be damned!” stated UK caster Initialise as Los Ratones picked up the win.
Nord, meanwhile, turned things around after their initial loss to Los Ratones, picking up three straight wins.
They defeated Verdant 27-10 last week, after a pretty even early game, Bulldog 21-7, and dominated LLS 28-9 with a 14.5k gold lead at 25 minutes.
You can read more about Nord Esports’ NLC Winter 2025 roster and Los Ratones entering the NLC here.
The NLC Winter 2025 playoffs start on January 29th. Group B matches will start tonight from 6pm CET as we find out which teams will also be advancing alongside Nord and LR.
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.
