FaZe’s final form, the Falcons finally fall, and more takeaways from Week 1 of RLCS 2022-23
FaZe Clan’s Firstkiller - Photo courtesy of Psyonix
After two months off and a dramatic offseason that saw the wildest rostermania in the history of Rocket League, the dust has finally settled. No more speculation or hypotheticals: teams are set and the race to the next World Championship has begun. Let’s break down what we saw in the first set of qualifiers and regionals this past weekend.
FaZe Clan come out swinging
There wasn’t a more consistent team across all of Rocket League last year than FaZe Clan, who managed three top-four finishes at LAN and two Regional wins in 2021-22. Yet their peaks weren’t as high as some believed they should be, given the individual talent they possessed. Both iterations of their rosters last year were given the superteam title before they played a single game, and both failed to live up to lofty expectations.
The new FaZe includes only one member of last year’s opening day roster, Jason "Firstkiller" Corral. Since the moment FaZe set their eyes on him after entering the esport last year, he’s been the guy they’ve looked to build around, but it never felt like the teams they’ve put on the field were a perfect fit. Double commits, miscommunications, and a lack of defined roles seemed to be what kept them from hitting their true potential. By adding Nick "mist" Costello and giving coach Raul "Roll Dizz" Diaz an entire offseason to coach, the Fall Open showed us the FaZe we’ve been waiting for.
FaZe had a good-but-not-great Swiss, beating three teams that would end up making the bracket, but dropping a series to G2 Esports. It was only when they got to the playoffs that they started to look truly dominant: they stuffed an upstart Shopify Rebellion (more on them later), dismantled G2 in spectacular fashion, and reminded Gen.G Mobil1 Racing that North America has good teams in a five-game roll in the Grand Finals. Each of their opponents took games off of them, but it never felt like the series was out of FaZe’s control. There were clips galore; Firstkiller himself put together most players’ career montage in the G2 series alone, and Caden "Sypical" Pellegrin hit one of the craziest double taps you’ll ever see. For a team that usually thrives on beating inferior teams and struggles against true contenders, FaZe’s Sunday was magical.
Mist’s unparalleled defense is a welcome addition to FaZe, as it let Sypical move into a secondary playmaker role that suits his style. Syp looked like his dominant SSG self this past weekend, which is the worst thing the competiton can hear. Furthermore, the lack of redundant playstyles on the roster (as the previous iteration with Firstkiller and Austin "AYYJAYY" Aebi did) allowed Firstkiller to get back to what he does best, which is terrorize opposing defenses with speed and mechanics, without hindering the strengths of his teammates. It took a while, but FaZe may have finally found the team they’ve been waiting for all along.
Team Falcons’ oKhaliD and trk511 - Photo Courtesy of Psyonix
The MENA gods can bleed
Last season, Team Falcons won all nine MENA Regional tournaments, represented (or were supposed to represent) the region in all three Majors, and lost just three times across the entirety of the RLCS 2021-22 season domestically. They were unquestionably the best team in the region, and the vast majority of the community believed they were the lone Middle Eastern team that could go toe-to-toe with the best that Europe and North America have to offer.
This season, after one tournament, the Falcons lost their regional streak and lost three times in one tournament. You’re reading that right: they lost as many times in one weekend as they did all of last year. Two of those losses came to KRN, who bested them in Swiss and in the finals to break their winning streak. That should be a wake-up call for their supporters, because while KRN was supposed to challenge and potentially unseat Falcons from their throne, that speculation was based on the idea that Hisham "Nwpo" Alqadi was going to play for them. After he was banned, Falcons still couldn't keep up with the new kids on the block.
Falcons’ competition in their native region was always bound to catch up eventually, but for it to happen after only one year of RLCS play was ahead of schedule. It’s exciting: viewers now have a reason to tune in to MENA regionals in order to see if Falcons can make it back to a major, but it also highlights the glaring mistake of not having two MENA spots at Worlds. A region that has teams who can beat a Major finalist should not be sending only one team to the majority of LAN tournaments, and the Middle East is dead-set on proving they deserve more representation going forward.
Gen.G Mobil 1 Racing’s ApparentlyJack - Photo courtesy of Psyonix
The British are coming!
Entering North America’s first Regional, most people believed that the teams that featured players who had just arrived in the continent would struggle, considering they hadn’t had much time to prepare in comparison to the home teams. For two-thirds of the out-of-towners, those speculations were correct: FURIA finished top 8 but still looked like a shell of their Fort Worth selves, and Complexity came just short of making bracket. Yet when the dust settled and there were only two teams remaining, one of them was Gen.G, who have a European majority and had just failed to make it out of Top 16 Swiss Qualifier last week.
Gen.G was always expected to move into contention for Major spots and regional wins at some point this year, but to do so well in the first tournament of the season was a shock. It didn’t look unsustainable or the product of a ‘honeymoon’ either: their roles seemed defined and their playstyle looked solid. The quality wins were there as well: with consecutive stomps of both Version1 and Spacestation in which they neutralized both team’s superstars, nobody can launch the feared accusation of a ‘mickey bracket’ at them.
Gen.G’s UK members have brought them a ton of attention, as they represent a narrative that EU is either better or worse than NA based on their placement in each regional tournament. The chances that they’ll reach or exceed a second place finish in the rest of the Fall are pretty small - not because they were a fluke, but because the top of North America is so competitive. At the same time, it’s hard to see them not making the Major with a top-two finish if they don’t play well below their skill level in the final two legs of the split. In any case, both Jack "ApparentlyJack" Benton and Joseph "noly" Kidd have already proven their move was worth it, and Nick "Chronic" Iwanski has established himself as more than an up-and-comer who was given the chance to kickstart his career. And of course, we’ll need them in Rotterdam to beat European teams and prove that it’s not just NA being free.
Oxygen Esports Rocket League - Photo courtesy of Oxygen Esports
Europe’s new rosters shine in quals
Europe had a very strange ending to the 2021-22 RLCS season. Besides the eternal longevity of Evan "M0nkey M00n" Rogez and Alex "Extra" Paoli, the greatest duo Rocket League has ever seen, the region looked completely different leading into Texas than it did when LAN play resumed in Sweden back in December. It resulted in a bunch of the teams that represented the region limping their way into worlds: Dignitas, Endpoint, and SMPR all hadn’t shown anything that proved they were among the 16 best teams in the world in months when they arrived in Texas, while teams like Liquid were at home despite being in much better form by the time the regular season concluded.
Months before the season had ended, it was clear there was going to be a massive roster shuffle in the offseason. Fans weren’t disappointed: this Friday’s Fall Open will feature 14 new teams. Team BDS and Liquid are the only teams that didn’t make a move, but here’s the scary part: they didn’t dominate in qualifiers, and were upstaged by fresh new rosters that featured a slate of players who looked revitalized and ready to challenge the hierarchy of Rocket League’s most storied region.
Archie "archie" Pickthall and Joris "Joreuz" Robben reunited alongside Ole "Oaly" van Doorn under the Oxygen banner and all three players looked back in elite form en route to a 3-0 run in Swiss. Evil Geniuses reloaded with Damian "Tox" Schäfer and looked the best they ever have. G1’s Spanish superteam lived up to the hype. Moist learned how nice it is to have Maëllo "AztraL" Ernst on your team. The new Williams Resolve, consisting of Jack "FlamE" Pearton, George "Breezi" Rusiecki, and Noah "noahsaki" Gillespie, nearly made it out of Swiss despite their five opponents rostering 14 players that came top eight or better at a Major or Worlds last season.
There’s been a lot of talk surrounding North America and the region’s improved depth, but the Top 16 and the Closed Qualifier proved that Europe may still be the toughest region to compete in. Sure, there won’t be many problems for the cream of the crop: Sundays will feature some mix of BDS, Karmine Corp, Moist, Oxygen, Liquid, and a random wild-card team that has a strong weekend. But the depth is still there, even if they’ve been shuffled. The question for Europe now is if they can keep these rosters together long enough to grow and elevate one another throughout the entire season instead of giving up after the first bump in the road.
2Piece is the season’s first breakout star
It seems like the beginning of every RLCS season comes with a new batch of talent. At the dawn of RLCS X, Monkey M00n went from a standout in the Rival Series to the unanimous best player in the world, and Landon "BeastMode" Konerman put North America on notice with two teammates who have never reached the highs they found with him on their side. Last year, Enzo "Seikoo" Grondein lead Endpoint to two Regional titles and became the first player to win Worlds in his rookie season, and Daniel "Daniel" Piecenski lived up to the sky-high expectations set for him when he took the field for SSG. It wasn’t talked about as much this year due to all the massive roster changes, but it was still exciting to wonder who the next player to take the leap into the upper echelon of Rocket League esports would be.
North America didn’t even get through one tournament before finding their newest star. Shopify Rebellion, who were seeded 17th going into the season, made playoffs and pushed eventual champions FaZe to six games. The sudden turnaround in results after a poor showing in 2021-22 came down to one man: Jayden "2Piece" Horton. Brought in to replace Daniel "jordan" Bholla and team up with fellow ranked demon Will "Paarth" Crews, 2Piece looked like a legit nr. 1 from the moment the tournament started. His chemistry with Paarth, paired with their ability to rely on Michael "Memory" Moss as a steady third man, helped them pick up quality wins against V1 and Rogue en route to their best tournament placement since the BeastMode days.
Rebellion’s biggest issue now will be keeping 2Piece (and Paarth, for that matter), as bigger orgs take notice while their teams flop - one specific former powerhouse that badly needs a roster change comes to mind. Teams will be lining up to poach him because no matter how good your team’s chemistry, rotations, and gameplan are, you need a clear-cut superstar to win. You need a Firstkiller, or a yanxnz, or a Vatira. If he can prove that his debut for the Rebellion wasn’t a fluke, 2Piece can be a foundational player for Rebellion or whoever else decides to pay him more.
Spacestation Gaming’s Arsenal - Photo Courtesy of Psyonix
Bonus: OpTic and Spacestation’s may have the most entertaining rivalry in RLCS History
There hasn’t been a matchup more fun to watch early on in the season than the games between OpTic and Spacestation, whose roster drama created a divide between Retals supporters and fans of Arsenal. Across the RLCS-verse, in Twitch chats, YouTube comment sections, and Reddit threads, war is waged between teenagers on behalf of their stars. It’s incredible for the game, and gives even casual viewers a reason to tune in once a tournament as long as they’re facing off.
Sure, the first two matchups between the teams have been awfully one-sided, but the Major-making potential for OpTic is obvious once they settle into their brand-new roster (and yes, AYYJAYY and Retals have played together but that was three years ago. It’s not the same). Spacestation has emerged as an early favorite to contend in North America despite laying an egg in their semifinal match against Gen.G, so both teams should continue to meet in high-leverage situations as the season progresses and Worlds points become more and more important.
The only bad thing that’s come from the SSG-OG rivalry are personal attacks on players, specifically the aforementioned Arsenal and Retals. Although the trash-talk between fanbases is a ton of fun to follow in-game, things can get nasty when people who have taken one player’s side start insulting the other. Both Arsenal and Retals have done an admirable job at ignoring and even poking fun at the hate they’ve received (see Arsenal referencing the endless ‘snake’ comments in his interview after beating OpTic last weekend), but it’s still a bad reflection of the fanbase and the game at large. Once we as a community clean that mess up, there’s no limit to how much the rivalry can grow the game by providing must-watch matchups outside of LANs and Grand Finals.