The Fall Of Ghost

Ghost is a star studded team that should be a top contender within North America. With a lineup containing Shock, the Season 9 NA MVP and one of the highest rated players trying to cement his name in the history books, the hugely experienced Roll Dizz, and dynamic attacker LionBlaze, Ghost is a team with a lot of fire power. And backed by an organization with rich history within Rocket League as a consistently top team in North America, as well as success across a variety of titles, Ghost has all the makings of a high caliber contender.

In the fall split, they displayed that they can achieve good results, getting back to back top 8 finishes to show themselves as one of the dark horse teams for the remainder of the season, ending the split in a formidable 7th to live up solidly to expectations.

Unlike almost every other team around them, with all but 2 other top 8 teams making a roster change, Ghost were happy with their lineup heading into spring as they looked for a break through to make the second major of the season.

And the split started to perfection, as Ghost won a tight first series in the first regional with a game 5 victory over fellow top 8 contender Version, seemingly cementing themselves in playoffs and as a genuine competitor for the split.

From there, it was all downhill for Ghost, and they would not win a single main event series for the remainder of the split. Ghost would proceed to be swept by Shopify Rebellion and struggle twice against G2’s mechanical offence, dropping them out of the event in 13th-16th.

It certainly wasn’t time for alarm bells yet, as teams have come back from worse, and they still had fought admirably in a difficult group. However, after their performance in the second event, the writing was clearly on the wall for Ghost, with their offensive pressure all but evaporated in a horror day 1 as they were twice swept and then conquered by NXT in their first main event win. This 1-9 performance sent Ghost home with back to back 13th-16th finishes, and sending them toppling out of the top 8 in overall standings.

And once in free fall, the pain wasn’t yet finished for Ghost, as despite being 1st seed in regional event 3’s closed qualifier, they tumbled out, 2-3, with losses to Oxygen, Torrent and Rogue, sending them home before they even had a shot at redemption.

Although excuses can be made about their run, such as a regional 1 group of death, and a grueling closed qualifier run, it still doesn’t change the fact that Ghost have been reduced from a consistent top 8 team to one unable to even qualify for main event. They’ve gone from contending, to completely out of the loop, and with time ticking on the team (worlds chances close to out the window, and Roll Dizz‘s and Shock‘s careers both potentially with limited time left), it’s about time for Ghost to ask the hard questions.

Do they need a roster change? Is it a play style change that’s needed? Or maybe it’s an alteration in atmosphere? Perhaps it might be that they just caught a stroke of bad luck in winter, but whatever it is, Ghost are going to need to work hard in the off season and come out swinging in spring if they’re any hope of redemption and living up to the heights that this roster is capable of.