Danish esports organisation Tricked Esport has announced the sale of its League of Legends NLC spot to fellow Nordic organisation Astralis.
As a result, Astralis’s academy team will now compete in Division 1 of the newly reformed NLC.
RELATED: Kosmos and Piqué partner with Ibai to purchase Astralis Superliga spot
The news follows on from Astralis Stormbringers, the organisation’s Spanish academy team, being sold to sports and entertainment company Kosmos. In the announcement, it was revealed that Astralis had already secured a place in the NLC.
Via a translated release, Morten Jensen, CEO at Tricked Esport, commented: “We love talent development in Tricked, and right now there is a lack of power further down in the ecosystem for League of Legends to stick together, which is why we are also happy to give Astralis an opportunity to build on our successful setup and we hope they take a big part of the sporting set-up in NLC.”
According to Tricked Espot’s official statement, the organisation will commit to a ‘Full Circle talent development concept, which includes creating a team that will compete at a national level. Last season, Tricked Esport were crowned champions of the NLC, beating LEC academy team Fnatic Rising.
Natasha Voetmann, Tricked Esport’s League of Legends Manager, added: “We end this round of NLC with a great first place. We are the first team ever that is not an LEC Academy team that has won first place. This gave us the opportunity to play against some of the best teams in Europe, in The EU Masters tournament, where we finished among the top 12.”
[primis_video widget=”5183″]
RELATED: Astralis acquires Disrupt Gaming, enters into NA Rainbow Six League
Last month, Freaks 4U Gaming replaced DreamHack as the NLC’s operator. As a result, the league has implemented a new multi-division league ecosystem.
Esports Insider: The NLC is the Nordic, UK and Ireland’s premier European Regional League, as such it makes sense for Astralis to compete within the region. Acquiring a team such as Tricked is certainly a surprise, given that the organisation recently won the NLC. It’ll be interesting to see how Astralis fairs in the new league alongside fellow academy team EXCEL.