ExceL eSports withdraw from ESL UK League of Legends Premiership

Excel Esports have stepped down from the League of Legends ESL UK Premiership 2015 Summer Season after experiencing some roster issues.

Excel were supposed to play Terra Cotta Army today, but the match was abandoned.
All of exceL’s games they’ve played this season will be considered a loss to exceL, and a win to their opponents. This means every other team is 1-0 up on exceL on the ESL UK scoreboard.
ESL UK caster Joe ‘Munchables’ Fenny said on-stream: “As you can see on your screen, TCA vs exceL was meant to be our second best-of-three of the day, unfortunately it has resulted in a default win to TCA. ExceL have withdrawn from the ESL UK Premiership after some roster issues.
“Obviously they weren’t going to be able to qualify for playoffs, so I think they’re going to kind of reset then try to requalify as we head towards the promotion tournament later in the year.”
Caster Ceirnan ‘Excoundrel’ Lowe added: “All credit to exceL – they had a really awesome team when they came into the ESL UK Premiership, they had a really strong early portion of the season, did well in qualifying, but they’ve had some internal roster issues.
“It happens to teams sometimes, people lose their motivation, especially with the new season coming around – people kind of play to the end of the season and say ‘okay I’m kind of done with League now’.
“And real life sometimes gets in the way. It happens in League of Legends and sometimes you need to take a break away from the game. Hopefully they can come back better and stronger next year.”
You can check out more comments from the casters on the ESL UK LoL stream here (around the 30-minute mark).
exceL was established in 2014 and recently underwent a rebrand.
We’ve reached out to exceL for a comment, and wish them all the best going forwards.
The other match that was due to take place today (NUEL vs Team Paria) was also abandoned, as Paria was unable to field a full roster. They have the chance to reschedule the best-of-three.
Munchables added: “Unfortunately, with Paria having to reschedule this best-of-three, and our second best-of-three resulting in a loss, you’ve just tuned into the Munch and Excoundrel podcast where we talk about the patch changes!”
Fair play to Munchables and Excoundrel for taking the initiative and forming a fun little 5v5 with ESL UK viewers – AND for Munchables casting while playing at the same time!
You can check out our recent interview with Munchables here about the challenges of being a caster.

Dom Sacco

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.