OCE Winter Regional Event 1 Day 2 Highlights
- Foxx
- Jan 15, 2022
- 3 min read
After a fairly tame group stage and first round of losers, aside from GroundZero’s shock defeat, tonight’s day 2 matches promised to be nothing but entertaining, producing some high quality Rocket League, with some interesting results.
The New Kids On The Block Rise, Previous Champions Falter
In RLCS X, there was a clear gap between Renegades, GroundZero, Cringe Society, and the rest of the field. In the Fall Split, there was a clear difference between Renegades and GroundZero, who made up 5/6 finalists and 3/3 champions.
But this split, that’s all changed, and the kids, ‘Forkidden’, comprised of Superlachie, Bananahead and Scrubbed have arrived. Heading into the split, the young prodigies had laid big claims to being a top 3 roster in OCE, but early on, they still appeared a little flustered, making uncharacteristic misreads and leaving the net wide open to fall quickly at the hands of a 4-0 defeat.
Yet the kids showed maturity beyond their time in the games to come, locking up on the defensive errors, whilst being more bold to go for the contested balls on offense, before GroundZero equalized the series, 2-2.
In game 5, Forkidden’s speed continued and it was GroundZero’s turn to look flustered. The match was tightly contested, and after capturing a crucial goal, GroundZero clawed the match back to 2-3 following some Torsos magic, it seemed that GroundZero could somehow comeback.
This was followed by Express scoring an unbelievable redirect; just on the wrong net, putting the match, and series, beyond doubt, to send GroundZero home in 7th place. With losses to WildCard and Forkidden now, the Fall split champs will need to rebound soon if they want to have a decent shot at the Winter major, though mathematically, that could already be out of their hands.
Forkidden also followed this up with a speedy, confident sweep of R!OT, locking in a well deserved, impressive top 4 finish.
Top 4 Bliss
Team Bliss was a consistently solid team throughout the Fall split. They always placed 9th or better, including some very unfortunate Swiss stage draws, but just couldn’t find the breakthrough to top 4 or even consistent top 8.
Straight away in Winter, though, and this has quickly changed. After a tough loss to Renegades in groups, Bliss found the win against Collateral to at least return to top 8, with a matchup against the feared Juicd Bandits.
Game 1 was brutal, with Hawk, Spratt, and Zayd each chiming in, putting them immediately on the back foot. But from that stage on, Bliss looked calm and settled, with all 3 members producing solo plays and consistency to return solidly, pulling off a tight game 5 off the back of two world class passes from Cobbo to lock in a matchup with Wildcard for their chance at a top 4 berth.
Coming up against Wildcard, Bliss were keen to avoid their past slow start, coming out of the gates like lions to dominate the series. Vortexioz produced a dominant performance, constantly taking Wildcard players out of the play and sniping the net to help lead the clearly in sync Bliss to a 4-1 win, and a much deserved top 4 finish, where they will play the in form ‘Forkidden’ to try and keep the dream alive.
Renegades Dominate
Following wins against SAM and EU’s #1 seeds at Stockholm, Renegades look hungry for some more LAN activity with their current form. After a 3-0 groups performance, with two clean sweeps, Renegades picked up the broom once again with their matchup with R!OT.
Their mentality was unparalleled, coming back from a goal deficit in game 2 and three goals down in game 4, and in combination with CJCJ’s perfect positioning and shooting, Fever’s dribbling, and Kamii’s reliability, there was nothing R!OT could do to prevent the 4-0 sweep, with Renegades cruising into top 3 looking better than ever.
A Day To Forget For R!OT
R!OT fans, now might be time to close the article. The #3 team from Fall, R!OT looked a shell of their former selves today, going 0-8 in the playoffs.
They were completely outclassed by the more experienced Renegades lineup, and against Forkidden, they were embarrassed. Not only did they get swept, but they just had no answer to the kids’ speed and astonishing shooting, even facing some free styling near the end. R!OT looked unconfident, uncomfortable, and unsure of where they stand. A 5th place finish is still a solid performance, but there’s going to need to be heavy changes to reset the mentality for the next event.
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