Rocket League 22-23 - Road to Rotterdam

With the RLCS Fall Invitationals already underway, many fans will be turning their attention to the first Major of the year already. Some teams have already qualified and the final Invitationals are due to take place over this weekend so there will be a full roster ready to go very soon.

The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) format takes the form of several regional invitationals followed by 3 split Majors. It’s during these tournaments that teams compete to earn enough RLCS points to make it to the World Championship and win part of a much bigger prize pool.

Not all regions are created equal

Rather frustratingly, the different regions in Rocket League will be sending different numbers of teams to the Major in Rotterdam. This is due to the amount and quality of the competition that is available in the different regions. For example, there will be 5 teams coming from the EU and North American regions, whereas smaller regions such as Asia Pacific and the Middle East/North Africa regions will only send 1 team each.

In order to qualify, teams must earn enough RLCS points. One of the best parts of competing in A tier and S tier Rocket League events is the chance to earn more points, which give teams a better overall world standing.

That’s not all they compete for though. The financial prizes certainly serve to sweeten the deal too! Teams will be competing for a share of the $310,000 USD prize pool, with first place getting a full $100,00 of it.

The teams already qualified

Although the EU Invitational has not yet completed, Karmine Corp have already earned their place due to placing first and second in the regional Fall Cup and Open respectively. But that’s all we know until the end of this weekend!

However, the NA Invitational has already finished and we know exactly who will be attending from this region:

• Gen.G Mobil1 Racing
• FaZe Clan
• Version 1
• Spacestation Gaming
• G2 Esports.

There are not really any surprises here, especially from G2 and FaZe. Both of these orgs have been really successful in Rocket League over the last year. In fact, NA and the EU dominated the top 10 of almost every tournament last year. The NA teams are probably out for blood when it comes to the EU as their teams missed out on the top spots at Worlds this year!

New teams to the scene this year

As Asia Pacific team James Cheese have already qualified, fans are probably going to be really interested to see how they perform at a higher international level. The brand new org only started competing at this level in January 2022. But they don’t let their relative inexperience affect them!

In just one short year, they’ve managed to place first in their qualifiers, opens, cups and invitationals. That means across a multitude of different events, they consistently come out on top. The craziest part is that it’s not even close. All of their finals have been either 4-0 or 4-1 results, which is pretty much the dream for most teams.

Image source: Esports.gg