Los Ratones’ LEC debut was nothing short of disastrous. They looked lost in the first week, a one-sided set of losses to all three teams they played. Week 2 started the same way. But now they’re starting to heat up and prove they may belong in the big leagues after all.
Caedrel’s streamer dream team is one of the biggest things to happen to League of Legends in the past few years, with him single-handedly bringing record-breaking viewership to tier 2 LoL when Los Ratones was still playing in the ERLs.
And, now that they’re in the LEC, Caedrel’s co-streams continue to draw in massive crowds. But both he and everyone on the team have been visibly stressed, with Los Ratones debuting as what seemed to be the worst team in the league.
However, they’ve turned things around and proven they may have what it takes after all. Caedrel couldn’t help but get emotional on stream after their first win, and he was elated after their second.
Los Ratones May Have Hope in LEC After All
Considering Los Ratones is made up of mostly content creators and people focused on building their brand rather than taking a world title, people had some valid doubts they’d truly stack up against major esports orgs.
And, for the first week, the doubters were proven right. These matches were not close, with Los Ratones struggling to get anything done on the map. There was a clear lack of coordination in comparison to their ERL performances.
However, Nemesis in particular has stepped things up. He’s undisputedly the star player of this roster, and, now that Baus has gotten a bit more consistent in lane, Los Ratones is much stronger and more well-rounded. They have a carry to play around, which should hopefully give their team a bit more structure and identity.
And, according to Caedrel, the team has had good luck in scrims so far. It just hasn’t translated to the stage.
He explained, “Scrims have been pretty good. I think a lot of people would be relatively surprised by our results against certain teams. But the problem with scrims is there’s so much randomness, and that randomness makes you think that your conclusions are ok. And then, when you get in a game that has no randomness, and it plays out, you realize that those 10 games that you played are actually completely irrelevant.”
In other words, Los Ratones thrives in chaos. When matches slow down, and they’re forced to out-macro their opponent, that’s when things get dicey.
However, Caedrel still believes they can win, and he’s heavily invested in their success. It got to the point where he was in tears after their very first win in the league, clearly exhausted by the rough debut but relieved that they finally put themselves on the board.
This was followed by Los Ratones recovering from a 10k gold deficit the next day and winning, something that’s almost never done in pro play. It’d be ideal if they were never that behind in the first place, but the fact that they had the resilience to win in such a dire scenario is impressive in its own right. If they can keep this pattern up, they have a good chance of making it to the Playoffs.
Is Los Ratones the best team in the LEC? No. And they won’t even be in the LEC past this first split this year, as they’re getting a brief guest slot, just like Karmine Corp Blue. However, this is a huge step toward proving that, despite being a content-focused team, they belong in the LEC, and that perhaps giving them a permanent spot in the league could be in the cards.