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The popular UK-registered team Los Ratones have lost a series for the first time ever in the Northern League of Legends Championship (NLC) after suffering a humbling 2-0 loss to NORD Esports.
Los Ratones have dominated the regional league (ERL) for the UK and Nordic countries this year. Out of their 23 games played in the NLC, they have only dropped a single one which was 75 days ago against NORD in the Winter Playoffs and Los Ratones still won that series 3-1. It’s also only the second series Los Ratones have ever lost, with the other defeat coming against Karmine Corp Blue in the EMEA Masters Winter Group Stages.
It wasn’t long ago that the team’s founder, Twitch sensation Marc “Caedrel” Lamont, was having to tell fans that Los Ratones likely won’t move up to the LEC and that he would consider changing regions if the team ends up with nothing left to accomplish.
Twitch streamer and Los Ratones toplaner Simon “Thebausffs” Hofverberg has always been targeted by other teams but he has been fantastic at absorbing that pressure, as you can see in the clip below.
Usually, he has been able to still impact the game despite dying a lot of times but yesterday his opponents came in with a smart strategy. NORD targeted Thebausffs heavily in the draft as he found himself in Game 2 with Poppy, Galio, Sion, Gragas, and Gwen all banned. Top lane veteran Tamás “Vizicsacsi” Kiss then smartly countered Baus’s Cho’Gath with Trundle, which led to the Los Ratones toplaner finishing with a brutal 0/12/2 scoreline.
Following the loss, Los Ratone’s midlaner Tim “Nemesis” Lipovšek remained upbeat and told his stream audience: “I’m honestly kind of happy that we lost. Our team needs a reality check, and there is no way to give a team a reality check other than by losing.”
NORD Esports and Ruddy Sack qualify for Copenhagen NLC Spring Finals LAN event
In general, NORD played very cleanly with legendary jungler Marcin “Jankos” Jankowski putting in a particularly impressive performance. The victory means they now have a guaranteed spot at the NLC finals LAN event in Copenhagen at the end of the month.
Joining them there will be Ruddy Sack, the team founded by British content creator DonJake who now co-owns it with streamers Jakob “YamatoCannon” Mebdi and Christian “IWDominate” Rivera. NORD and Ruddy Sack will face each other in the next round, with the winner advancing straight to the NLC Spring 2025 finals.
Ruddy Sack secured their place after a fantastic victory over Bulldog Esports. The two teams have developed somewhat of a rivalry this year as Bulldog had won all three previous meetings between the two organisations and Bulldog were the team that eliminated Ruddy from the NLC Winter Playoffs earlier in the year. But this time things were different as superb performances from Swedish midlaner Pengcheng “Peng” Shen inspired Ruddy to a convincing 2-0 win over Bulldogs.
Following on from that cathartic victory, Ruddy are now looking forward to the match against NORD. The trash talk has already started as YamatoCannon had some choice words for Jankos in the tweet below, telling the veteran that it’s time for the youth to take over.
Reigning NLC and EMEA Masters champions Los Ratones can still qualify for the Copenhagen finals as well. However, that will require a long run through the Losers’ Bracket and even if they do reach the LAN event, they’ll then have to face the loser of Nord vs Ruddy to decide who will claim the other spot in the final on June 1st.
If Los Ratones want to secure another EMEA Masters trophy, they’ll have to bounce back from this defeat and learn from it in order to qualify for the 2025 NLC Spring finals.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
