The disappointment in the ERLs #1: NNO Prime

This year in the EMEA Circuit, many teams succeeded, but others were left disappointed by a performance well under the expectations. For our first episode, we will explore the 2024 Season of NNO Prime, which has been their second season in the Prime League and their first big project in the EMEA ecosystem.

NNO Prime's 2024 roster made no doubt of its ambition, with well-established names of the EMEA scene on every role, a lot of experience and two former participants of a major international league with Lucjan "Shlatan" Ahmad who played in the LEC in 2022 and Tolga "Serin" Ölmez who qualified to MSI and Worlds the same year via the TCL.

It is not rare nowadays to see former World Championship players in the ERLs, however, SeRiN didn't seem to have lost his shape, having a strong 2023 season and still being seen as a very good midlaner in Europe. Artjoms "Shiganari" Pervušins was alongside him the main asset, being on two straight very good years in the ERLs.

Daniel "Scarface" Aitbelkacem was a semi-reliability, the german toplaner and former Shiganari team mate in USE in 2022 had a very bad start of 2023 in Giants, but bounced back very well in a Vitality.Bee roster that was very close of reaching EMEA Masters despite many changes. Shlatan and Luca "Lucky" Santos Fontinha were however big names on-paper that didn't have the 2023 Season to back up their reputation, as Shlatan had a super inconsistent year with Solary in the LFL while Lucky had started a collection of middle-tier project after its promising days in Tricked and Barça Esport.

All in all, NNO Prime had a roster that was to challenge the Prime League title, while being a threat for the EMEA Masters. However, the lack of certitude regarding several player's form would reduce the expectancy that fans could have before the season started.

After a slow start for the first 3 weeks of 2024 (2 victories and 4 defeats), NNO Prime finally found their rhythm and finished the first regular season in 13-5, with a single defeat against E WIE Einfach in their last 12 matches, which was more of an accident than anything else.

The initial victories largely came from SeRiN's domination over his midlane opponents, but the rest of the team quickly catched up to him, with Shlatan finding a strong mid-jungle synergy and Scarface taking his marks on a weaksided role. Shiganari and Lucky were the ones to pick up the train last, maintaining small issues that led Shiganari to have a lot of isolated deaths, but NNO Prime could still advance in the playoffs stage with confidence.

The first heartbreak would come in the Winner's Finals against SK Prime, a team that had a 1-1 record against them. The series ended in a 3-2 win for SKP, with Dimitri "Diplex" Ponomarev and Matúš "Neon" Jakubčík one-tricking Taliyah and Jinx to victory. The repetitive drafts (game 3 and game 4 drafts were the same but one pick) allowed SKP to find the adaptation against NNO's habits, and once NNO tried to shift the gameplan in game 5, SKP were too much installed in their gameplan for NNO Prime to find an effective counter.

The second and most deadly heartbreak came in the Loser's Finals against Eintracht Spandau. NNO Prime indeed suffered a reverse sweep despite seeming to have understood how to deal with Spandau's gameplan. Shiganari and Lucky hyper aggressive botlanes started to get countered after game 3, where Nikolay "Zanzarah" Akatov managed to prevent NNO's botside to take the lead while Scarface ceased to dominate Maximilian "Vertigo" Rassi. Short of individual solutions, NNO found themselves lacking team cohesion, especially between Shlatan and his botsid. The last game saw them being completely apathetic, drafting a damage-less comp and letting Johannes "Fun K3y" Werner's Jinx take over the game. Disaster struck, despite a strong regular season and excellent shape ahead of playoffs, NNO Prime missed the EMEA Masters in a bitter way.

NNO Prime Summer Split would be the representation of their playofffs run, able to do the best, but once the ennemy team countered their aggressive plans on the botside and prevented Shlatan to reunite with SeRiN, NNO would find themselves into very inconsistent plays.

NNO's Summer would see them being out of the top 6 every week but the last, clutching the end of the regular season with 3 wins in the last 4 matches and benefiting from BIG's choke. Nonetheless, it was a much different NNO, with the meta shift in almost every role, most of Shiganari's best picks were hard to select, while SeRiN had tough times picking up ad champions at first (and only at first). The individualites still shined enough so NNO could claw its way back through teamfights, but meanwhile, Scarface was left evermore isolated and Lucky would never really find a synergy with Shlatan.

The playoffs would see NNO Prime on a short purple patch, demolishing Eintracht Spandau 3-0 through two Lucky masterclass on Rakan as well as a very strong topside oriented game with Shlatan's Nidalee. This series still reflected a separation between the top and the botside that was too hermetic for comfort, making NNO a predictable team in their gameplan.

NNO's loss 2-3 against USE in the next BO5 would however not come with many regrets, as the level was pretty high in this match and the Unicorns were a team that never should have started in the lower bracket anyway. With the new EMEA Masters, a 4th place would mean qualification to the european tournament, allowing NNO to have one last shot at finding success for their 2024 Season.

They at first had to go through the Last Chance Qualifier. Being drawn against Forsaken, NNO can thank SeRiN for literally 1v9ing the first game (18/2/1 on Corki) in the middle of a team that once again had issues playing as such. Shiganari's Ziggs in game 2, giving more freedom to Lucky, allowed NNO Prime to find a better level in the second game against a very hard to beat Forsaken. The second BO3 against Atleta was on the other hand a fairly easy victory, with Lucky once again finding impact alongside Shlatan due to Shiganari being able to handle the lane on its own.

The BO5 against Movistar KOI was expected as one of the biggest clash of the LCQ, and for the first time of the year, NNO Prime would win a BO5 that finished in 5 games, with an impressive last game that can be considered as one of the best games of NNO Prime this year.

NNO's struggling year would however be what cost them the Swiss stage, with a lack of consistency, the german team was left less prepared than its main opponents. Despite strong wins over VenomCrest and Supermassive, NNO failed to beat any LFL team and crumbled when it mattered the most against Macko Esports. The italian team, very experienced of these events, is specialised in punishing teams who lack the fundamentals. Despite SeRiN's best efforts, the cohesion was simply not good enough for NNO to win against a united MCK roster.

The last BO5 against Macko is a good way of summing up NNO's season, which saw all 5 players being at the level we expected them to be, but never would they click together. Shlatan's habits of playing through mid and top essentially didn't click with Lucky's ambition to act as a loose cannon alongside his jungler. Shiganari on the other hand struggled a while to find his identity in the team, eventually acting as a hard weaksided adc, the exact opposite of Spring. These identity issues were very costly in the end, as NNO Prime weren't ready for Europe's biggest stage, even though the individual talent was clear and arguably higher than many teams who still made it to top 16.