EMEA Masters Winter 2025 has become the most popular tournament in the series' history, all thanks to Los Ratones

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The recently concluded EMEA Masters Winter 2025 shattered peak and average viewership records, making it the most popular tournament in the series' history. The excitement in the League of Legends community was driven by the victory of Los Ratones, a new team composed of streamers and former European stars. Not only did the players of Los Ratones take home the championship, but they also streamed every official match on their personal Twitch channels — something previous champions hadn’t done.

Los Ratones is a new team in the professional League of Legends scene, founded at the end of 2024 by popular British streamer Marc ‘’Caedrel’’ Robert Lamont. The team made a strong showing in several show tournaments, which earned them an invitation to the NLC Winter 2025 national league. What makes Los Ratones unique is that all of its players stream their training and tournament matches on their personal Twitch channels, attracting tens of thousands of viewers. Additionally, the games of Los Ratones are regularly covered by Caedrel, who, by the end of 2024, became the most popular English-speaking community caster in League of Legends. As a result, Los Ratones won the NLC Winter 2025 and set a historic league record, surpassing even some franchise leagues in viewership.

??EMEA MASTERS WINTER CHAMPIONS??

WE DID IT!!!! WPGG pic.twitter.com/QVKIkPOJyJ

— LosRatones (@LosRatoneslol) March 23, 2025

The players of Los Ratones also performed well in the EMEA Masters Winter 2025, though their journey to the final wasn't as straightforward this time. In the group stage, Martin ‘’Rekkles’’ Larsson’s team lost to Karmine Corp Blue but still managed to advance to the playoffs, securing second place in their group. In the first round of the playoffs, Los Ratones faced a tough match against the Turkish team SuperMassive, which ended in a 3-2 victory for the European squad. Interestingly, SuperMassive had the lead twice during the series, but Los Ratones proved stronger on the final two maps.

The conclusion of the tournament was nothing short of dominant for Los Ratones. In the semifinals, the team defeated Team Phantasma from the Greek league, and in the grand final, they triumphed over the French team Ici Japon Corp. Esport. Both matches ended in commanding 3-0 victories for Los Ratones. It’s truly remarkable how, in their first year, this new team managed to claim both the national NLC league title and the international EMEA Masters championship.

EMEA Masters Winter 2025 viewer statistics

EMEA Masters Winter 2025 Viewership Statistics

EMEA Masters Winter 2025 truly marked the breakout moment for Los Ratones. The team outpaced all others by a factor of two, both in total viewing hours and in average viewership per match. The most-popular series of the tournament was the grand final between Los Ratones and Ici Japon Corp. Esport, which drew a peak of 486,101 simultaneous viewers.

Four of the top five most popular matches of the tournament featured Los Ratones. Meanwhile, Ici Japon Corp. Esport, Team Phantasma, and Karmine Corp Blue all set new personal viewership records thanks to their games against Los Ratones. However, Los Ratones couldn’t top their own best performance — last year, Caedrel’s team set a record with 612,001 viewers at its peak during the Red Bull League of Its Own 2024 show event.

Read also: NLC Winter 2025 breaks all series records, outperforms LTA and LPL

The EMEA Masters Winter 2025 matches were covered by over 80 unique channels on Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. In addition to the Los Ratones players, the games were also streamed by Caedrel, Kamel ‘’Kameto’’ Kebir, Gustavo ‘’Baiano’’ Gomes, and other popular community casters. Unsurprisingly, Caedrel was the undisputed leader in audience reach — his channel averaged 143,880 viewers, four times higher than any other channel during the tournament. 

Thanks to Caedrel's streams, EMEA Masters Winter 2025 became the first tournament in the series where English-language broadcasts led in both viewing hours and online viewership. Previously, French, Spanish, or Turkish streams dominated the audience at EMEA Masters tournaments.

Most popular EMEA Masters / European Masters tournaments

EMEA Masters Winter 2025 became the most popular tournament in the EMEA Masters series in terms of peak online viewership and average viewers per match. It also surpassed all tournaments from the European Masters era (before the series was rebranded as EMEA Masters) in both categories. However, it didn’t set a new record for total viewing hours. The European Masters tournaments in 2021 and 2022 generated more viewing hours, but they also had three times the airtime under the previous format.

Read also: EMEA Regional Leagues recap: Who gained viewers this winter?

Most popular League of Legends tournaments in 2025 so far

Along with setting new records within the series, EMEA Masters Winter 2025 became the fourth most popular tournament of 2025. At the time, it was only outperformed by the LCK Cup, First Stand, and LEC Winter, but it surpassed franchise leagues like LTA North and LTA South.