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Los Ratones, the star-studded League of Legends roster formed by UK content creator king Caedrel, have today won the Arozzi NLC Winter final.
They defeated Nord Esports in a straight 3-0 at the Confetti X venue in Nottingham, and in doing so, have qualified for the EMEA Masters Winter 2025 tournament.
There, they will face the best teams from around the other EMEA Regional Leagues, including the likes of Karmine Corp Blue, Los Heretics, Barcelona and Ici Japon Corp. Esport.
EMEA Masters Winter 2025 kicks off on March 17th. You can read more about the 2025 EMEA Masters format breakdown, slot distribution and split info here.
Los Ratones’ roster of TheBausffs, Velja, Nemesis, Crownie and Rekkles will be ready. Their walkout at Confetti X can be seen below, with Messi Baus even bringing a football onto the stage.
Nord did fight back in game three, with Los Ratones almost taking the nexus around the half an hour mark. They secured the elder dragon at around 43 minutes, before taking the win.
Foxdrop described Los Ratones as ‘disgusting’, and fellow UK caster Hiprain said they were ‘absolutely devastating’ today.
Baus was a monster in the Los Ratones top-lane in particular, picking up kills, split pushing and generally causing havok on the rift – too much for Nord to handle.
Baus said it felt amazing to win, and thanked the fans for supporting and believing in him. Rekkles said he loves working with the team and it’s ‘been a pleasure’ to work with them, and that ‘it’s been a while since I enjoyed playing League this much, it brings me back to the 2014, 2015 days’.
Caedrel said he was close to tears as he spoke to Archarom in the winners interview on stage.
Los Ratones’ victory came after Nord defeated Bulldog 3-1 in the NLC Winter lower final yesterday. The news also comes as Los Ratones merch was revealed, including their first esports team jersey.
There were tech issues and some delays today, both at the Confetti X LAN broadcast venue, and at the watch party at The Nest, around the corner in Nottingham. However, these were fixed and play continued. In the meantime, the likes of Middlecott entertained viewers by playing a game of ‘I Spy’.
In the Bulldog game yesterday, the Bulldog bot laners could hear the casters’ audio in their headsets, and today apparently Baus could hear some comms through his headset that nearly lead to a redraft, but Nord said it was fine. Rekkles could also hear the casters at one point, and we also heard Nord had audio issues. Organisers told us there was an issue in game two, but it was solved.
Credit must also be given to Nord, of course, for reaching the NLC Winter final, and they and the other teams will no doubt regroup in time for the NLC Summer 2025 season.
In terms of viewership, the NLC Winter 2025 grand final reached a peak of more than 360,000 viewers. While the majority of that of course came from Caedrel’s stream (hitting 200,000+ viewers), the NLC also peaked at just over 80,000 viewers.
We’ll be back with more content from the finals today and throughout the week, so make sure to check the other Esports News UK channels, such as on Instagram, X and TikTok, for more.
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.
