League of Legends‘ esports circuit has spanned over fourteen years. The industry has formed formidable rivalries, brought household-name athletes and teams to fame and held prestigious competitions. In 2025, tradition is clashing with innovation as Los Ratones ushers in a new era of ‘stream teams,’ and roster member Thebaus says LEC teams are ‘scared’ to scrim with them. Let’s explore what we know about the situation and how Los Ratones is disrupting European LoL play.
Los Ratones: What Makes ‘The Rats’ Unique?
Los Ratones, founded by coach, analyst and commentator Marc ‘Caedrel‘ Lamont in late 2024, is unlike any League of Legends team before it. The group’s unorthodox methods have attracted the community’s attention and proved wildly successful. Los Ratones’ composition includes a mix of content creators and pros. While Nemesis, Rekkles and Crownie have extensive experience in League of Legends esports as pro players, Velja is known for his solo-queue Ranked performance as one of the top Challenger players in Europe and has only played in amateur circuits. Top-laner Thebausffs is mainly a streamer with no prior starting string experience (though he was a substitute for G2 esports and BIG from 2019 to 2020). The team’s founder, Caedrel, serves as a coach and sub himself, which is also relatively untraditional.
Los Ratones is notable for leaning into the group’s lighthearted stream presence in marketing to get fans invested in the group’s journey. On its X.com account @LosRatoneslol, the team posts memes and stream clips to 112,000 followers. Caedrel has 1.2 million followers on Twitch at twitch.tv/caedrel and 495,000 on YouTube at @Caedrel, and Thebaus has over 1.4 million followers on Twitch at twitch.tv/thebausffs. In addition, all roster members have public Twitch accounts, active social media presence and YouTube accounts chronicling key moments. This provided a solid existing audience to build from as the team grew and established immediate relevance in the esports sphere.
Los Ratones’ most unprecedented quality is their decision to stream all scrims publicly. Previously, most professional League of Legends teams protected their scrim performances under lock and key. There are several reasons for this, one being that public streams make it easier for opposing teams to identify and actively counter another’s strategies.
It also protects the team’s reputation after a scrim loss. Los Ratones’ public scrims are a defiant show of confidence to the industry, and they have been massively successful: most reach over 200,000 views on YouTube and Twitch. Competitors are taking notice and some teams are even replicating this streaming model.
Los Ratones’ NLC Performance
Though Los Ratones emerged as an underdog, they have swept the European pro region and delivered promising tournament results. The group placed first in the NNO Cup, a C-tier invitational streamer tournament, on December 8 2024. Just a week after on December 15, Los Ratones won a Red Bull League of its Own showmatch against T1. T1 has won Worlds on five occasions, and roster member Faker (widely regarded as one of the best esports athletes of all time and a member of the Riot Games Esports Hall of Legends) co-owns the team. This win skyrocketed Los Ratones’ public perception and reinforced their potential to progress into A-tier and S-tier tournaments.
Los Ratones next pursued success in the Nothern League of Legends Championship (NLC), a B-tier Northern European tournament with Riot Games affiliation. They placed first in the tournament’s seeding stage with a 100% win rate and have since progressed into the main event phase. Los Ratones is now sitting comfortably in the NLC bracket as a Grand Finalist and will face off against either Nord Esports or Bulldog Esports on March 2nd for victory.
Notably, the 2025 NLC winners will attain a slot in the EMEA Masters Winter 2025, an A-tier competition with the sixteen strongest European teams. In 2024, the event included rosters from Karmine Corp, Team Vitality, Team BDS and Team Heretics. If Los Ratones wins NLC 2025 Winter and enters EMEA Masters Winter 2025, they will reach A-tier tournament participation within only five months of formation.
An EMEA Masters participation or win also opens the door to potential League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) play. Since the LEC is franchised, it is not possible to enter the league through EMEA Masters. Teams must pay a fee for association and qualify through an application process. However, the LEC operates in tandem with EMEA Masters, and proving performance capability at the event certainly wouldn’t hurt Los Ratones’ sponsorship opportunities or LEC qualification chances. The LEC is also the final regional step to offer qualification to the League of Legends World Championship (Worlds), the title’s most prestigious tournament.
Related Article: League of Legends: Major 2025 EMEA Changes
Caedrel has previously voiced his desire to ascend into A-tier and S-tier play, stating in the Los Ratones reveal video that he wants the team “to reach the pinnacle of Europe and the highest level of competition.” He also replied on-stream to a Redditor’s question and alleged Los Ratones could beat several LEC teams:
“In my humble honest opinion, we would probably beat the bottom three teams in the LEC in a best-of-five. And if anyone takes offense to that statement, I’m happy to set that up and make it happen if their season is over, cause why not […] I feel like, from watching the teams, unbiased, that we could beat those teams.”
Caedrel also name-dropped his opponents, saying he thinks Team BDS and Team Vitality would be “tricky” to beat but he is “pretty convinced” Los Ratones could beat “Rogue, SK and Heretics […] in a best-of-five.”
Related Article: Caedrel Says Los Ratones Could Beat Some LEC Teams
After these statements, fans expressed interest in watching Los Ratones LEC scrim matchups. However, LEC teams have been notably absent from the team’s recent opponents.
On February 24 2025, Thebaus broke the silence to explain why, saying:
“We have no experience or practice versus an LEC team… why is that? ‘Cause they’re —ing scared. That’s why.”
Thebaus proceeded to call himself ‘the Messi of League’ and continued:
“If you have names like Nemesis, Rekkles, Crownie and Velja and then you also have the Messi of League in one team, and then they’re gonna play the high road and act as if we’re not competition […] they just don’t wanna be embarrassed. ‘Cause I think they’re scared to even scrim us off stream, ’cause they know damn right that I’m leaking that —- as soon as we’re done scrimming, I’m leaking that —- if we beat them.”
The reality is that teams always need to play against higher-level opponents to improve. If Los Ratones qualifies for EMEA Masters and enters the LEC, they will reach a new level of rivalry with formidable foes. Scrimming with LEC teams is the logical next step to keep Nemesis, Rekkles, Crownie, Velja and Thebaus on their toes and ready for intense competition.
That being said, Los Ratones also benefits from scrims because of their members’ influencer presences and content-focused marketing. Opposing teams who do not operate in the same way have very little to gain from a public scrim since many do not have a centralized streaming focus. At best, a win against Los Ratones would preserve an LEC team’s reputation and potentially gain some fans, while at worst a loss could lead to them being memed around the League community and cause public humiliation.
As Los Ratones rapidly progresses through EMEA pro play, the issue will likely need to be addressed. LEC teams have not spoken about scrimming Los Ratones and it remains to be seen how Caedrel and the team will handle the situation and find competitive scrim opponents.
