North America's Big Three Stand Tall After Historic Week Three
By Stax
With the rest of the league setting them firmly in their sights, the top three teams in North America dismissed every challenge they faced in week three of the Rocket League Championship Series to preserve a tie atop the standings at 4-0. No match saw a fifth and deciding game on Saturday as NRG, Cloud9, and G2 all secured a place in the North American Playoffs. Week three also saw an unexpected but historic overtime battle between G2 Esports and Ghost Gaming.
The most impressive of the so-called "big three" was NRG Esports, which swept Spacestation Gaming and finished the day with a 3-1 victory over Evil Geniuses. In typical NRG fashion, a different player stepped up in each of the three wins over Spacestation. In game one, it was a hat trick from JSTN en route to a 5-0 blowout to open the day. Then in game two, Fireburner scored both goals in a 2-1 overtime contest. GarrettG's tenth shot of the series was the only one that mattered in game three, as his 71 mile-per-hour blast broke a scoreless tie and would prove to be the only goal as NRG grabbed its third series victory of the season. Defense was key for NRG, which allowed only one goal in the series while facing 13 shots from the opposition.
The reigning World Champions were in action twice this week, facing off against both Evil Geniuses and Rogue. Despite the best efforts of the former Aussie superstar Drippay, including a critical pair of goals in the third game to prolong the series, Evil Geniuses could not find an answer for Gimmick. The North American Most Valuable Player from last season poured in four goals and six assists in the victory over EG, while pouring in another four scores to go with three assists against Rogue. These performances led to Gimmick earning the official Player of the Week honor announced at the end of the broadcast. He joins Spacestation's Sypical (week 2) and CorruptedG of Evil Geniuses (week 1). Both series resulted in 3-1 wins for Cloud9 and left everyone asking the same question: can anybody beat this team?
Arguably the most noteworthy series of the day was a sweep between two teams on opposite ends of the standings. Undefeated G2 Esports swept away the winless Ghost Gaming. As is usually the case with Ghost, every game was reasonably close and G2 had to remain focused for the entire five minutes of each game. Ghost was mere seconds away from taking game two to tie up the series when JKnaps got free and beat Allushin to tie the game with just ten seconds on the clock. What followed was the longest overtime in RLCS history - 8:11, breaking the previous record of 7:26 set during last season's Promotion Tournament between Fnatic and Savage! The historic extra period ended when JKnaps rolled a pass across the face of the goal to Chicago who buried the game-winner, and G2 would go on to secure game three as well. In the game two loss, Ghost Gaming made 15 saves, tied for the third-most alongside Mock-It Aces and Flipsid3 Tactics, which each occurred during the World Championship almost two years apart.
Five goals apiece from AyyJayy and Wonder, and three complete blowouts left Splyce in the rear view mirror and Rogue celebrating its first win of the season in dominant fashion. The final scoring tally saw Rogue scoring as many goals (13) as they allowed shots on target from Splyce. Only two of those shots from the losing side managed to find the net. The loss for Splyce is the third sweep it has suffered this season, with the only outlier being a 3-2 win over Ghost on opening day.
With both Cloud9 and G2 sitting at 4-0, all eyes turned to NRG as it closed out the day against Evil Geniuses. The match felt like a carbon copy of the match Cloud9 had with Evil Geniuses, with NRG taking the first two games quite convincingly. Drippay again added two goals in an overtime win in game three to keep the series going, but then NRG opened the floodgates. Seven goals on 15 shots and a 7-0 rout gave NRG its fourth win of the season, and an exact tie with Cloud9 with both teams sporting a 12-2 overall record.
G2 Esports sits right behind Cloud9 and NRG with a 12-5 overall record, while the rest of the league resides in a different area code. Spacestation Gaming, Rogue, Splyce, and Evil Geniuses are all sitting on just one win, with Evil Geniuses at the bottom of the pile having lost four matches. Ghost Gaming sits in the basement at 0-4, and a 3-12 overall record.
Next week may well be judgement day for a lot of those bottom five teams. Many are in action against each other as Ghost takes on Spacestation and Rogue, and Evil Geniuses will face Splyce. Splyce will also face the daunting task of trying to upset G2, while Spacestation will have to contend with Cloud9. The highlight of week four is definitely at the end as G2 and NRG are set to collide. That match will go a long way in determining who finishes in the top two spots of the league and earns an automatic bid into the World Championship in June.
The Observer's Player of the Week is NRG's JSTN. With ten goals and nine assists - including seven goals in the final series with Evil Geniuses, JSTN put himself in the top three of each of the individual awards races for this season. The youngest member of NRG leads with league with 1.21 goals per game, averages one assist per game to lead North America alongside Gimmick, and has 2.14 saves per game. That puts him second behind Drippay's 2.2.
With the rest of the league setting them firmly in their sights, the top three teams in North America dismissed every challenge they faced in week three of the Rocket League Championship Series to preserve a tie atop the standings at 4-0. No match saw a fifth and deciding game on Saturday as NRG, Cloud9, and G2 all secured a place in the North American Playoffs. Week three also saw an unexpected but historic overtime battle between G2 Esports and Ghost Gaming.
The most impressive of the so-called "big three" was NRG Esports, which swept Spacestation Gaming and finished the day with a 3-1 victory over Evil Geniuses. In typical NRG fashion, a different player stepped up in each of the three wins over Spacestation. In game one, it was a hat trick from JSTN en route to a 5-0 blowout to open the day. Then in game two, Fireburner scored both goals in a 2-1 overtime contest. GarrettG's tenth shot of the series was the only one that mattered in game three, as his 71 mile-per-hour blast broke a scoreless tie and would prove to be the only goal as NRG grabbed its third series victory of the season. Defense was key for NRG, which allowed only one goal in the series while facing 13 shots from the opposition.
The reigning World Champions were in action twice this week, facing off against both Evil Geniuses and Rogue. Despite the best efforts of the former Aussie superstar Drippay, including a critical pair of goals in the third game to prolong the series, Evil Geniuses could not find an answer for Gimmick. The North American Most Valuable Player from last season poured in four goals and six assists in the victory over EG, while pouring in another four scores to go with three assists against Rogue. These performances led to Gimmick earning the official Player of the Week honor announced at the end of the broadcast. He joins Spacestation's Sypical (week 2) and CorruptedG of Evil Geniuses (week 1). Both series resulted in 3-1 wins for Cloud9 and left everyone asking the same question: can anybody beat this team?
Arguably the most noteworthy series of the day was a sweep between two teams on opposite ends of the standings. Undefeated G2 Esports swept away the winless Ghost Gaming. As is usually the case with Ghost, every game was reasonably close and G2 had to remain focused for the entire five minutes of each game. Ghost was mere seconds away from taking game two to tie up the series when JKnaps got free and beat Allushin to tie the game with just ten seconds on the clock. What followed was the longest overtime in RLCS history - 8:11, breaking the previous record of 7:26 set during last season's Promotion Tournament between Fnatic and Savage! The historic extra period ended when JKnaps rolled a pass across the face of the goal to Chicago who buried the game-winner, and G2 would go on to secure game three as well. In the game two loss, Ghost Gaming made 15 saves, tied for the third-most alongside Mock-It Aces and Flipsid3 Tactics, which each occurred during the World Championship almost two years apart.
Five goals apiece from AyyJayy and Wonder, and three complete blowouts left Splyce in the rear view mirror and Rogue celebrating its first win of the season in dominant fashion. The final scoring tally saw Rogue scoring as many goals (13) as they allowed shots on target from Splyce. Only two of those shots from the losing side managed to find the net. The loss for Splyce is the third sweep it has suffered this season, with the only outlier being a 3-2 win over Ghost on opening day.
With both Cloud9 and G2 sitting at 4-0, all eyes turned to NRG as it closed out the day against Evil Geniuses. The match felt like a carbon copy of the match Cloud9 had with Evil Geniuses, with NRG taking the first two games quite convincingly. Drippay again added two goals in an overtime win in game three to keep the series going, but then NRG opened the floodgates. Seven goals on 15 shots and a 7-0 rout gave NRG its fourth win of the season, and an exact tie with Cloud9 with both teams sporting a 12-2 overall record.
G2 Esports sits right behind Cloud9 and NRG with a 12-5 overall record, while the rest of the league resides in a different area code. Spacestation Gaming, Rogue, Splyce, and Evil Geniuses are all sitting on just one win, with Evil Geniuses at the bottom of the pile having lost four matches. Ghost Gaming sits in the basement at 0-4, and a 3-12 overall record.
Next week may well be judgement day for a lot of those bottom five teams. Many are in action against each other as Ghost takes on Spacestation and Rogue, and Evil Geniuses will face Splyce. Splyce will also face the daunting task of trying to upset G2, while Spacestation will have to contend with Cloud9. The highlight of week four is definitely at the end as G2 and NRG are set to collide. That match will go a long way in determining who finishes in the top two spots of the league and earns an automatic bid into the World Championship in June.
The Observer's Player of the Week is NRG's JSTN. With ten goals and nine assists - including seven goals in the final series with Evil Geniuses, JSTN put himself in the top three of each of the individual awards races for this season. The youngest member of NRG leads with league with 1.21 goals per game, averages one assist per game to lead North America alongside Gimmick, and has 2.14 saves per game. That puts him second behind Drippay's 2.2.
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