Near Airport, the newly assembled team featuring two-time retired legend Yiliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng, alongside Ashkan ‘TF Blade’ Homayouni, Mingyi ‘Spica’ Lu, Eugene ‘Pobelter’ Park and Vincent ‘Biofrost’ Wang, will be competing in the League of Legends NACL 2025.
The team dominated the NACL qualifiers, securing its spot with a terrific run by clean sweeping every opponent. Near Airport will now be kicking off their journey for the rest of the season, beginning with NACL Split 1, with the ultimate goal of reaching LTA.
“I’ve played top lane for the past eight years and now, for the first time, I’m looking at the pro scene. It’s going to be fun for content, but I’m also taking it more seriously, maybe even competitively. But yeah, I’m excited to see how it all plays out,” said TF Blade about joining the team and playing in NACL.
As Near Airport prepares for NACL, Doublelift mentioned that one of their biggest challenges will be to dedicate time for scrims while fulfilling their streaming and personal life commitments.
“Things aren’t going great in terms of practice. Time commitment is a big issue and I’m not sure everyone can manage it, right? We all have our own streaming schedules, sponsors and personal lives. And Vincent [Biofrost] is still a student,” Doublelift explained.
Despite these issues, the team wants to give their best effort. They don’t want to make a half-baked attempt and will try their best to make things work, Doublelift said while motivating others.
NACL Split 1 will take place at the Riot Games Arena in Los Angeles from March 26th to June 6th, featuring a prize pool of $40,000 (~£30,848). The tournament will follow a single round-robin format in the Group Stage, with the top six teams advancing to double-elimination Playoffs.
