NA Regional Event 2 Day 3 Highlights

A day of high stakes matches, quality Rocket League, and the announcement of the winter major being held in LA made for an interesting day of RLCS on championship Sunday in NA.

G2 Sends Clear Message:

We may have underestimated them coming into the regional, but G2 are certainly a force to be reckoned with. Despite coming up against an out of sorts NRG, with Garrett fighting food poisoning and Squishy out of sorts health wise, G2 took advantage of the situation to demolish NA’s king.

Their offence was perfectly in sync, with the newly added Atomic ascending to god like levels with some of his shots, and the team all round appearing to fit together like a well oiled machine. They never let NRG breath and produced a dominant 4-0 sweep, the first NRG has faced in 364 days, and locking in a crucial top 2 finish for G2

FaZe Outlast SSG:

A rematch from last regional’s lower bracket final, this series certainly delivered. Despite a Daniel air dribble and Arsenal snipe to secure game 1, SSG were quickly outpaced in the following games, getting shut out by some unbelievable FirstKiller defence and then a devastating Bra71l where Ayyjayy piled on the offensive pressure to score 4, with FaZe leading 2-1.

The next 2 games were two of SSG’s better, and although they fought right to the line, with Daniel scoring a hat trick, including a one second goal, FirstKiller was unstoppable, scoring the sealer at the 5:16 mark of overtime, securing himself a thou and the 4-2 victory.

NRG Come Back From The Dead:

Up until yesterday, NA regional competition had never seen a BO7 reverse sweep, with SSG’s win over Oxygen the first in history. Today, after a first time occurrence in 11 seasons of competing, it happened again.

Early on in the series, NRG were helpless against FaZe’s relentless offence, with Sypical’s 4 goals in game 2 a clear display of how scattered they were, being picked to pieces to go down 3-0 in the series.

But somehow, NRG just always seems to find a way. From the brink of defeat, with the odds stacked against them and just a goal away from elimination, it was the veteran, GarretG, who rose above the rest. He found the flick to secure game 4, before Jstn’s ice cold shooting and a perfect Squishy pass in the following game brought the series back to 3-2.

His shooting continued in game 6 with another 2 helping to find the tying game, but in game 7, with the series on the line, Garrett rose to the occasion with two critical goals, before a heart wrenching zero second miss from Sypical sent FaZe home packing in a disappointing 4-3 defeat.

G2 Bounce Back To Win Epic Series

After NRG’s early performance against G2, it would’ve been tough seeing them fight back, but NRG attempted to do what they do best once again. This time, they made sure to get off to a fast start, with Squishy’s shooting and Jstn’s defence helping NRG take a 2-0 series lead.

In game 3, NRG’s 2-1 lead with 15 seconds left appeared enough to secure a 3-0 series score line, but a pristine flick from Atomic up to JKnaps made it 2-2, before JKnaps’ bumps on Garrett set Atomic for an overtime open net to stay in the series after a relentless game of 13 shots.

But after G2 started the game off strong, two perfect plays from Jstn to nail a zero second goal and set Squishy up for a comfortable finish, and despite some incredible solo plays and shooting from JKnaps bringing the series back to 3-3, they couldn’t conquer champions field, as NRG rose as a team to take it in game 7, resetting the bracket and giving us another BO7.

In the second BO7, G2 really turned the screws on NRG in defence, only allowing more than one goal in just one game, where NRG shooting was just unstoppable. Yet aside from that one mishap, G2 completely had NRG’s number, and a combination of Atomic’s clutch shooting, some solo plays from Chicago, and perfect defensive rotations, G2 were able to take the set 4-2, netting themselves the regional event victory.

After a meager 5th-6th place in the first regional, this G2 roster looked far more in sync today, picking up some much needed points for the LA major and locking themselves in as one of NA’s best.