Los Ratones

Los Ratones (LR) is a European professional ''League of Legends'' team based in the United Kingdom. The club was founded by former player and caster Marc "Caedrel" Lamont. The team is known for being the first British-based organisation to win EMEA Masters, the highest tier of professional competition in the EMEA region outside of the ''League of Legends'' EMEA Championship. Los Ratones competes in the Northern ''League of Legends'' Championship (NLC).

History

During a livestream on his Twitch channel on 1 June 2024, Caedrel first brought up the idea of competing in the Northern ''League of Legends'' Championship (NLC) alongside Tim "Nemesis" Lipovšek and Simon "Thebausffs" Hofverberg, commonly known as Baus. Nemesis was a former LEC player who appeared on two editions of the ''League of Legends'' World Championship, while Baus was guest caster and analyst during the 2021 LEC season. Months after the said stream, Caedrel announced on 15 November 2024 that he would be starting a professional team called "Los Ratones", with Nemesis and Baus joining the organisation as its midlaner and toplaner, respectively. They would be joined by jungler Veljko "Velja" Čamdžić, ADC Juš "Crownie" Marušič, and support Carl Martin Erik "Rekkles" Larsson, with Caedrel serving as head coach. Prior to joining the team, Rekkles was part of T1 Esports Academy in the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) Challengers League for the 2024 competitive season.

Name origin

The name, "Los Ratones" first emerged in the "CaedrelPlays" YouTube channel, one of Caedrel's three channels in which he plays games outside of ''League of Legends,'' on 17 September 2023 in a first of a series of videos of him playing "Teamfight Manager," an esports manager game available on digital distribution platform Steam, when he typed "Los Ratones" as the name for his team on the game.

Scrim streams

Los Ratones is known for being the first professional League of Legends team to live-stream the majority of their scrims. Scrims, or practice matches between professional teams, are typically private in League of Legends to protect strategies for official games. On scrim days, Los Ratones can be expected to receive tens of thousands of concurrent viewers across Caedrel and the players' streams. The fan reception of LR's scrim streams inspired FlyQuest and Cloud9 of the ''League of Legends'' Championship of The Americas (LTA) North Conference to also stream their own scrims.

On 9 March 2025, Los Ratones was originally scheduled to have practice matches against GiantX, a team currently competing in the LEC. However, this was cancelled due to a rule by game developer Riot Games that prevents the scrims to be livestreamed.

Impact in Tier 1 leagues

In response to the popularity of streaming scrims popularised by Los Ratones, LEC Commissioner Artem Bykov announced on 13 March 2025 that a trial phase until 23 March would be in place to allow LEC team to publicly stream their practice matches under particular conditions. LTA Commissioner Mark Zimmerman also made a similar announcement on 21 March 2025 that teams in the league may scrim teams from Tier 2 leagues, so long as the team schedules are not in conflict.

Events and Competitions

NNO Cup

Los Ratones entered its first tournament as an organisation in November 2024 when they joined the second season of the NNO Cup, a tournament organised by German team No Need Orga. In the tournament, the team went undefeated in the winning bracket with a 12–2 win-loss game record, winning all their best-of-five series en route to its first title. Notably, Caedrel was the team's support player as Rekkles was unable to join the team.

Red Bull League of Its Own

On 29 November 2024, the team announced via its X (formerly Twitter) account that the second edition of Red Bull League of Its Own would be the live debut of Los Ratones, where they would face 2024 World Champions T1 in a showmatch at the Accor Arena in Paris, France. In the event, Los Ratones emerged victorious against T1, which featured Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok and Park "Untara" Ui-jin, who was Ryu "Keria" Min-seok's replacement in the event.

NLC

On 2 January 2025, Los Ratones announced that it would be competing in the Northern ''League of Legends'' Championship (NLC) for the 2025 competitive season.

In the Winter Split, the team went undefeated in the group stage, 4-0, and also went undefeated in the playoffs with a 4-0 series record, en route to its first domestic championship after scoring a 3–0 sweep against NORD Esports in the finals in Nottingham. Los Ratones would then have an undefeated 4-0 record in the Spring Seeding phase. Despite losing to NORD Esports in the upper bracket semifinals in the bracket stage, the team would have an 14-2 game record in the same phase en route to winning its second consecutive NLC title in Copenhagen, with a 3-0 win over NORD.

EMEA Masters

Los Ratones has qualified two EMEA Masters splits so far in 2025. In the Spring Split team was seeded in a four-team double elimination bracket group alongside Karmine Corp Blue, Nightbirds, and E wie einfach Esports, where they would qualify alongside KCB to the quarterfinals. In the playoffs, Los Ratones would secure a 3–2 victory over Papara SuperMassive of Turkey in the quarterfinals, before winning against Team Phantasma of Greece in the semifinals, 3–0, to qualify for its first EMEA Masters Finals. Winning in another 3–0 sweep against Ici Japon Corp of France in the final, Los Ratones secured its first EMEA Masters title, becoming the first organisation based in the United Kingdom to do so.

In the Spring Split, Los Ratones went 2-1 in the group stage, qualifying for the playoffs. The team would beat NORD Esports in the round of 16, 3–0, in a rematch of the NLC Spring Finals, before getting past BoostGate Esports in a 3–2 win in the quarterfinals. The team would go on a 6-0 game record across semifinals (vs. BK ROG Esports) and finals (vs. Barça eSports) to win their second EMEA Masters championship, becoming the first team since Karmine Corp to win the tournament more than once.

Roster

Professional standings

Season-by-season records

Tournaments results

Tier 1 ambitions

On 30 March 2025, in an update video published to the team's YouTube channel days after their maiden EMEA Masters victory, team founder and head coach Marc "Caedrel" Lamont disclosed that one of Los Ratones' goals is to be part of a Tier 1 region in the future. Prior to the video's release, fans have expressed their interest to see Los Ratones compete in the ''League of Legends'' EMEA Championship (LEC), the top tier professional ''League of Legends'' competition in the EMEA region, which provides a pathway to international competitions, including the ''League of Legends'' World Championship. Due to the current franchising rules that began in 2019, it would be deemed impossible for the team to do so and would need to purchase a slot from an existing club or formulate a partnership with an existing team without losing the team's essence and appeal. Alternatively, Caedrel also brought up the idea of Los Ratones competing in the North American Challengers League (NACL) to contest for a guest spot in the ''League of Legends'' Championship of The Americas (LTA) North Conference.{{cite web , title=WHAT'S NEXT FOR LOS RATONES? – A Caedrel Recap , url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOTIHYj_gBg , website=youtube.com , publisher=Los Ratones , format=video , date=30 March 2025

References

League of Legends teams
Los Ratones
Esports teams based in Europe