Rocket League 351 Recap
G2 Esports Back on Top
G2 Esports and their new roster with Atomic, Chicago, and JKnaps came out on top of the NASCAR Rocket League 351, defeating The General NRG 4-2 after suffering a 3-4 loss in the first series of the Grand Finals. G2 Esports won their second event of the season in North America, matching The General NRG as the only teams with multiple wins in the 2021-22 RLCS season for North America. They’ve moved up to second in the Winter Point Rankings, and are very close to clinching a spot in the Winter Major, newly announced to be in Los Angeles at the Youtube Theater!
Two other new rosters, Spacestation Gaming and FaZe Clan, continued their dominance in the Winter split, both reaching the top four for the second consecutive event. Much like G2 Esports, they’ll look to secure their spot for the Winter Major in the upcoming Mobil1 Mountain Classic. Oxygen Esports and new signing Gimmick also performed well, achieving a top 6 finish again and staying in contention for the major. Their closest opponents, Version1 and Rogue, both had opposite performances from the previous event. Oxygen Esports knocked out Version1 in the lower bracket round 1, hurting their chances for the major. Rogue improved on their finish from the X Games Open, losing to FaZe Clan and coming in top 6 as well.
(image courtesy of Rocket League Esports)
The new Team Envy also improved their performance, but still fell out in top 8 after a close loss to Oxygen Esports. They will face an uphill battle to qualify for the Winter Major despite the improved performance, and will lament their poor showing from the X Games Open. Ghost Gaming, unlike Team Envy, continued to struggle, dropping out in the group stage for the second consecutive event. After contending for the Fall Major, they’ll be looking ahead to the Spring Split and hoping they can find their old form. They lost to surprising upstarts NXT Esports, who won their first RLCS series of the season 3-1 over Ghost Gaming.
Though NXT Esports lost to Rogue in the playoff bracket, they’ll be hoping to build off of their performance throughout the event and come back stronger. Fellow closed qualifiers Charlotte Phoenix also emerged from the group stage, shockingly reverse sweeping Complexity Gaming and qualifying in third. It was a difficult weekend for Complexity Gaming, who went 0-3 and fell out in the group stage, surprisingly matching the results of Gentlemen and Susquehanna Soniqs, as well as the aforementioned Ghost Gaming. Shopify Rebellion and XSET also put in decent performances before meeting in the first round of the playoff bracket, where XSET won 3-1 before going on to lose to Rogue.
(images courtesy of Rocket League Esports)
A Historic Weekend
In addition to G2 Esports winning their second regional event in the last three after going 15 events throughout RLCS X and the beginning of the season without a win, several other pieces of history were made this weekend. The General NRG’s GarrettG appeared in his 1,000th career regular season RLCS match, the first ever to do so. His team also had the second-ever reverse sweep in a Best of Seven against FaZe Clan. The first? Spacestation Gaming, a day earlier against Oxygen Esports. Young prodigy Daniel, who was nine years old when RLCS began, scored the winning goal of the series. G2 Esports’ sweep of The General NRG in the upper bracket finals was also the first time in 364 days that The General NRG was swept in a Best of Seven, nearly a full calendar year.
It was a phenomenal weekend of Rocket League in North America, with upsets and historic performances throughout the weekend. It concluded with G2 Esports on top, a place they and everyone else will hope to be for the Mobil1 Mountain Challenge in three weeks. Next weekend, the focus shifts to Europe for the Premier Cup, starting Friday at 11 a.m. EST.
