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UK esports organisation Bulldog Esports have had an impressive season in the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC) after returning in late 2024, beating The Ruddy Sack twice in playoffs and other teams to reach the NLC Winter 2025 LAN finals in Nottingham this weekend.
They face Nord Esports in the lower bracket final on Saturday March 1st, and the winner will meet favourites Los Ratones in the grand final on Sunday March 2nd. Can these underdogs cause an upset and win? What does the future hold for them? And what has kept 31-year-old veteran UK player Kasing going in League of Legends for more than 12 years? We sit down with the players at Confetti X: Top-laner Mietek (Poland), jungler Lulas (Portugal), mid-laner Kaymin (Germany), ADC Exofeng (Bulgaria) and support player Kasing (UK).
Congrats on reaching the LAN finals, guys! Tell us a bit about each of yourselves going into the finals.
Mietek: Hello, I’m Mietek, I’m the top-laner and I hope we’ll win tomorrow.
Exofeng: Hello everyone I’m Exofeng and I’m the current ADC for Bulldog and I’m confident that we’re going to destroy Nord.
Kasing: Obviously I’m Kasing, I’m the support and uh [Kaymin kisses the air next to him] and somehow my mid-laner loves me! We’re going to do great.
Kaymin: Hello I’m Kaymin, the mid-laner and personal massage guy for Kasing, and main protagonist from the Kaymin show which will go live Saturday at 10m. I’m up for tomorrow.
Lulas: I’m Bulldog’s jungler Lulas and number one Kaymin fan. Let’s go!
You’ve proved some people wrong to be here, I think some people expected The Ruddy Sack to be here, but you not only beat them in playoffs, you beat them twice. DonJake is not a happy man.
Kasing: (laughs) I mean you know, Jake has always commented on my age! So if you lose to someone who’s twice the age of most of your players, I don’t know…
Kaymin: He also said that Kasing should rename to K-ageing because of his age, but honestly I think we we showed them they are really good players but we are just better, and we are meant to be here, and although they have a lot of fans and good content, I think we showed that we have better content on the rift and yeah, that’s why we are here right.
Lulas: I just want to say regardless of the names that you see, we just look at champions. At the end of the day we just practiced more and better, and that’s what mattered. Like no offense to the Ruddy guys, they were good, but we just took the wins on the day.
Mietek: I don’t really remember the games. We won two times, I was just kicking keyboard.
“Whether we stay together [after this split], whether we don’t stay together, whether I go retire, you know, cos obviously I’m very old. But the most important part is that we actually understand that everyone has a common goal: we’re all here to win.”
Kasing, Bulldog Esports
If you win against Nord, you’ll be against Los Ratones. What do you say to people who see you as underdogs, can you prove them wrong?
Kasing: I mean to be honest you know, if we’re not here [to win], then who are we, right? But obviously some people might call us the Kasing team or the Kaymin team or whatever, but we’re gonna win it all.
Kaymin: I think I’m speaking for the whole team here. Wherever we go, wherever our path goes in life, we are meant to win it all. And I think we want to show that Kasing needs to get it up after some years! I think in the end honestly, Los Ratones is really insane, they are the under rats, we are the underdogs, but you know, we all know everyone out there, you guys love the dogs, what can I say.
Lulas: We’re just happy to be here. We’re going to play the big guys, we’ve been the underdogs til now. I don’t think that will change and it doesn’t need to change, it just gives us motivation – we’re happy to be the underdogs, honestly.
Mietek: I think it would be really hard to play against Los Ratones, like they’r almost unbeatable, but I think if we win against Nord, we might have a small chance to win against Los Ratones.
We’ve just had Baus win NLC Winter 2025 Rookie of the Split, but you were second, Exofeng. How does that make you feel?
I mean I think Baus deserves it more, he’s styling on everyone. So yeah I think I deserve it also, but Baus is the goat.
When I think of Bulldog, it’s a name that’s been around UK esports for a while and great to have them back, with new faces too in Nawi and so on. What was it about the Bulldog project that got you interested in this?
Kasing: Actually this question is a bit hard to answer because I could’ve done a variety of different things, but I felt like I kind of just had a got feeling that this project would work, or it made sense in my mind. Obviously with some of the people that I met such as Nawi, you know, first time meeting her… my goodness. But anyway!
You can’t go on from there, what happened in that first meeting?
Kasing: Nawi at the beginning… I thought, what is she doing? But honestly, the more time I got to understand how she thinks, I was like, you know what, she believes in all of us. The fact that she put her trust into us, I can only put back my trust into her.
So hopefully I can show that it’s not wrong to invest into the Kasing stocks, cos we’re going to win it all!
Kaymin: I think for me it was just the clause in my contract where I get one night of sleep with Kasing in the same hotel room. I think otherwise I would have not signed that.
But honestly everyone would have signed that deal honestly, like that’s like a no brainer baby (laughs).
Honestly there are a lot of teams out there and I think wherever we’d have gone, we would have just gone for improvement. The NLC stacked up big this season, so with all these LEC players, I saw a lot of potential in growing as a player by playing these LEC players, so that is what my purpose was in this journey.
Lulas: Wait, wasn’t that clause only on my contract? I was the one that negotiated that with Kasing? I was lied to, gaslit!
Anyway, I came here for improvement. It’s just playing against the best players, it’s what we’re looking for. We did more than people were expecting us to do, but honestly to me it’s no surprise. I’m just hoping for a good series tomorrow. We did what we came for, we improved, we improved as a group, we play as a team, we’re hopefully going to win as a team. If we lose we’re not too unhappy as well.
Mietek: I just came here to improve. I saw that my support and my jungle will come top, miss every combos! And I feel like when I play 1v3, I can improve them also!
Exofeng: I obviously came also for improvement and to play versus the most known and some really decent League players. I think when you play versus good players you’re going to improve, in most of your games you’re going to learn something from them and move forward.
Kaymin, you have a friend on Nord you’re going up against: top-laner Vizicsacsi. Do you have a message for him?
Kaymin: He’s a good friend of mine. Honestly he’s the only person in esports I’m still good friends with, we played on BIG. We were an underdog team going third place, so I think he knows that I have the underdog buff, and he knows what he’s up against. But honestly I’d be really happy for him if he would win, I would be happy if I win. So I’m just hyped for us playing good and I just hope he has his S game, otherwise I don’t want to win against him.
Like if he does some weird 0-10 combos with Mietek, that would not be what I want!
“I came here for improvement. It’s just about playing against the best players, it’s what we’re looking for. We did more than people were expecting us to do, but honestly to me it’s no surprise. I’m just hoping for a good series against Nord. We did what we came for, we improved, we improved as a group, we play as a team, we’re hopefully going to win as a team. If we lose we’re not too unhappy as well.”
Lulas, Bulldog Esports
Kasing, you’ve been around for a while now. What’s kept you going this long, what is it about League of Legends that keeps bringing you back? You’ve won Superligas, you’ve played at Worlds, it must be good for the guys to have someone like you on the team with your experience.
Kasing: Honestly it’s just been a journey that makes everything, right. And if I wasn’t motivated, you would be able to tell. I can tell, myself. You know, if I feel like I’m just not good enough, I’m not delusional. I’d be like, ‘guys, I’m just a bot!’ (laughs)
The most important part for me has always just been the competing aspect. There’s no other feeling that you can get, especially after sweating for countless weeks and weeks of trying to perfect a good draft, trying to understand someone’s point of view and that kind of stuff, where, you know what, you finally get rewarded. And I feel like that has kind of been missing in the past year or two, or whatever, where I feel like I put in a lot of work, but then you don’t get anything back for it. That, to me, was painful to to live through, and I kind of don’t want to make the same mistake again.
I don’t want to have regrets, so for me, as long as you’re still playing good and you’re still motivated to go, why not?
It’s been a strange but great time for the NLC, because we’ve got all these streamers and big names coming in, and it’s a far cry from where UK League of Legends was five or six years ago. But what’s next for you guys, on a personal note as a player and also as a team? Will you stick together for the Spring split?
Exofeng: Well it depends if we win on Saturday! We’re facing a really good opponent, but if you win, then versus Los Ratones it will be so hard to win, but I think we still have a chance to do that. We are a pretty disciplined team and have good players.
Mietek: I mean for me, I hope that we win tomorrow but it doesn’t really matter, like I still feel as this five, this environment, it still can give me more. And if I have an option to stay, I’m up to it.
Kasing: Yeah, we will not be playing with those two again! (laughs) I’m kidding, I’m kidding. As Exo said, if we lose tomorrow, then see you guys! But on a real note, that still has yet to be spoken about. For us right now, we’re kind of just focusing on our main goal, which is obviously to beat Nord, and obviously to beat Los Ratones after, and obviously you’re going to win Worlds after. But it’s just more like understanding that there are bigger priorities right now and the talk will obviously come soon enough.
Whether we stay together, whether we don’t stay together, whether I go retire, you know, cos obviously I’m very old. But the most important part is that we actually understand that everyone has a common goal, we’re all here to win.
Kaymin: I think for me, that’s something I don’t want to really think about right now. In the end I feel like we are here right now as five players and it doesn’t matter if I would play one year or five years with all of them. I really enjoyed the ride, I really love everyone and their own way here, and I would not want anyone else with me sitting here in this interview right now.
Even if we don’t play next split together or someone gets bought out or whatever, you know, for me what happens right now and what happens tomorrow and in the finals is important. I think this is the the best ending, and then we can think about what’s next but right now, I just think about the here and now and enjoy.
Lulas: Just like all the others, I haven’t put too much thought into it. I really like this group, I think we’ve accomplished something, hopefully more tomorrow and onwards. The future can only tell whoever goes where, obviously some of us have different contracts from each other so it’ll depend. I think we like each other, at this point we’re we’re more than just a team, we’re friends, we we talk about other stuff, we spend time together doing random stuff every day. So it’s more about will we play together? Hopefully yes, but it’ll depend on each individual’s future for the rest of the team really.
Have you thought about what you’d do when you retire? Would you do coaching or streaming, perhaps?
Kasing: For me, it’s just, if I thought if I put a lot of time into thinking what I’m going to do after I retire, I wouldn’t be playing right now. So for me it’s kind of like, don’t get me wrong, I’m not oblivious to understanding that at one point maybe I want to do something else. But for me right now, I just feel like I just love playing too much.
Kaymin: Before I give my answer, I wanted to say people like Vizicsacsi, people like Kasing, that are already in their 30s, they often get viewed as like guys that are just passengers that are just enjoying the show in the last years of competition. But I just wanted to give a quick shoutout cos I’m playing with Vizicsacsi, the oldest League player, with Kasing, like seeing these people they are like on the verge of losing their dream, right, losing the thing they love. So I just wanted to say playing with these people is like a different fire.
“You have these young people that have everything ahead of them, but these [experienced, older players like Kasing] have that fire that they’re about to fall off a cliff, right, so that’s different and I think people should show some appreciation for that. I really appreciate Kasing for that, he puts so much effort into the team and he has so much knowledge.”
Kaymin, Bulldog Esports
Thanks guys. Is there anything else you’d like to add, or any shoutouts?
Kaymin: I know I bring it up every time, it might be annoying but I just want to give a shoutout to my dog at home!
We have my dog Tomi rooting for us. He knew that we would beat Ruddy, the dog decided. And if the dog speaks everyone is quiet, so shoutout to the dogs out there, I know you won’t understand me right now. But if you have a dog, pet him right now or give him a snack. Or give him a Kasing photo, that’s also a snack.
If you have a rat, sure, go root for Los Ratones, but it’s like only 5% of you.
Kasing: Can I pet that dog?
Kaymin: Me or my dog?
Kasing: Both! (laughs)
Sorry I need to be professional.
Kaymin: I mean we can also sing as a group, who at the dogs out!
Kasing: Woof, woof woof woof woof.
I’ve never done an interview like that before! Thanks guys and good luck in the playoff finals this weekend.
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.
