This is a heavy loss for the UK League of Legends scene. After losing its investors due to the current economic gloom, the club has announced that it is leaving the NLC line and releasing its entire roster and coaching staff. Departures include Korean mid laner SlowQwho joined Zero Tenacity in stride, or the Belgian coach Nias, former coach of Axolotl. The toplaner Chasy had already left the structure before the announcement. The former DWG KIA player signed with MAD Lions in November. The boss explains:
Unfortunately, we no longer see a viable path for X7 as a company. PTherefore, we will be ending the activity of the company in the coming weeks. I would like to take this moment to reflect on all that our team and our players have achieved since our creation, and to explain to you in all transparency how we got here. Having noticed a constant demand for imported talent in the LEC/LCS, our goal with X7 and its League of Legends project was to provide a platform to nurture world-class players from Asia, and help them integrate into the Western teams. […] We have obtained convincing results with this economic model and we are proud to have worked with Kang “Haru” Min-seung and transferred him to Team Vitality, as well as Kim “Chasy” Dong-hyeon to Mad Lions in LEC.
Founded in December 2020 on the Isle of Man in the UK, X7 Esports was considered one of the best structures in the UK region. Despite disappointing results at the Aurora Open in NLC at the end of the year, the team had finished in the final of the playoffs this summer, and had lifted the title in the spring of 2022. Two podiums which had taken them to the European Masters. Twice this season, X7 had finished in the quarter-finals of the European Championship.
dustythe champion of the last split, has already mentioned the big economic problems of the NLC league. The structure had warned that it was looking to leave the Northern League of Legends Championship during the winter, just like X7, Bifrost or MNM Gaming. The fault of sponsoring which does not wish to associate with teams present in a rather unstable league. Rising interest rates or the war in Ukraine did not help investors make decisions favorable to the teams. X7 could be the first of a long list of disbands.
Our intention throughout 2022 has been to raise capital and continue our growth in 2023, but X7, like many other businesses, has been hit by a series of unforeseen global circumstances this year. Our seed fundraising plan in January 2022, and then our retry in April a few months later, went off the rails due to the combination of record inflation and consecutive interest rate hikes, falling nearly 10% of the S&P500 index, Russia’s declaration of war on Ukraine, the skyrocketing cost of living, and several crashes in the cryptocurrency market, including Luna in May and , more recently, FTX. Investors with whom I can say that we were close to reaching an agreement preferred to wait until the economic crisis subsided.
The CEO of X7 says the decision makes sense for investors and understand this reluctance. But the negotiations having failed, the activity can no longer be viable. Final decision that sealed the team’s fate: Riot Games’ LEC redesign who downgraded the NLC to non-accredited statuswhich implies budget cuts. So long X7.