Nerd Street League of Legends Winter Championship December update

Nerd Street’s Winter Championship open tournament series for League of is well underway, with three of the four online open qualifiers in the books. The top teams from across these qualifiers will compete in the League of Legends Winter Championship finals from February 19 to 20 for a share of a prize pool of $10,000.

More details and sign-ups for qualifiers in the Winter Champs series for League of Legends can be found here.

One more open qualifier is coming up on Jan. 15. Players on teams that have competed in these qualifiers have earned points to place among the Nerd Street Winter Champs leaderboard.

The top 12 teams on the leaderboard after the fourth open qualifier move on to the finals. Another four spots will be up for grabs at the Last Chance Qualifier taking place Feb. 12-13.

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So far, these are the top 12 teams on the leaderboard:

1. University of St. Thomas
2. TEAM LAWRENCE
3. Maryville University
4. AOE Not Zoos
5. Winthrop University JV
6. Winthrop University
7. Glaive Esports Prime
8. Trance’s Tyrants
9. AOE Esports
10. Last Resistance
11. DARKSX FANBOYS
12. DMV Meme Team

Three teams to watch

University of St. Thomas

The University of St. Thomas has been dominating Winter Champs. They won both the first and second online opens and finished second in the third. With 20,000 points and a 10,800-point edge over second-place TEAM LAWRENCE and only one more online open, their spot atop the leaderboard is secure. Two of their players appear to have recently moved on, and it’s unclear whether they will compete with St. Thomas in the future. One of these players was picked up by 100 Thieves for their amateur team 100 Thieves Next (100X). 100 Thieves has made waves in scouting amateur talent and recently signed 15-year-old prodigy General Sniper to 100X too.

Maryville University

Maryville finished second at the second online open and fourth at the first one. Maryville has had one of the best collegiate League of Legends programs for a while now. They were champions of Riot Games’ 2019 collegiate championship and finished second to Winthrop University at this year’s edition. They even won the Esports Awards’ Collegiate Esports Program of the Year for 2021.

They have had players go on to play in the League Championship Series (LCS). One of those players, Aiden "Niles" Tidwell, who played for Golden Guardians this year, recently announced he was returning to Maryville to finish up his degree. He’ll likely make Maryville even more of a force to be reckoned with in Winter Champs.

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Winthrop University

Winthrop’s highest finish was third at the first online qualifier. They have also fielded a JV team and a B team at some of these online qualifiers. Don’t let their lack of high placements in the other online opens fool you. Winthrop are the reigning League of Legends collegiate champions. They also finished first at the Philly Esports Collegiate tournament last month, finishing ahead of both the University of St. Thomas and Maryville.

Lead image credit: Riot Games