| Rocket League Championship Series | |
| Genre: | Rocket League tournament |
| Location: | Various |
| Years Active: | 2016–present |
| First: | Season 1 (2016) |
| Last: | 2024 |
| Participants: | Various throughout season World Championship: 16 |
| Organized: | Psyonix (2016–2023) Blast ApS (2024–present) |
The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) is an annual Rocket League esports tournament series produced by Blast ApS and endorsed by Psyonix, the game's developer. It consists of two online qualification splits in several regions, with teams earning points towards qualifying for midseason tournaments known as Majors and the Rocket League World Championship, both of which are held as LAN events worldwide.
Psyonix had observed the popularity of Rocket League matches on Twitch and other live streaming platforms like YouTube by early 2016 and were looking to use the game more in Esports.[1] In March 2016, Psyonix announced the first Rocket League Championship Series; the finals took place in June 2016 with a 55,000 prize pool, and was won by Cameron Bills, Brandon Lachin, and Ted Keil of iBUYPOWER Cosmic. [2] [3] The second season of the championship series took place in December 2016 with a $125,000 prize pool, and was won by Mark Exton, Francesco Cinquemani, and Marius Ranheim of FlipSid3 Tactics. [4] A third series began in March 2017, with the $300,000 prize pool finals taking place three months later. In this season, two teams from the oceanic region were also invited to compete.[5]
A second division, the Rocket League Rival Series (RLRS), was added in Season 4. The two teams finishing at the bottom of the RLCS and the two teams finishing at the top of the RLRS for each region play each other in a promotion tournament at the end of the season to determine if teams are promoted or relegated. At the advent of Season 5 in June 2018, Psyonix organised and managed the event alone. Previous to this, they partnered with Twitch. Season 6 started in September 2018 and featured a $1,000,000 prize pool.[6] For Season 7, Psyonix introduced South America as a new region.[7] Season 8 took place in December 2019. The Season 9 championship was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with winners of the regional championships being considered the champions.[8] In July 2020, Psyonix announced a new format for the tenth season of RLCS, known as RLCS X. This format did away with league play and the RLRS in favor of teams earning points through three regional splits, all culminating in three seasonal majors.[9]
The 2021–22 season began in October 2021, bringing in four new regions (Middle East and North Africa, Asia Pacific North, Asia Pacific South, and Sub-Saharan Africa), a more reliable circuit similar to Season X, and a $6 million prize pool. The new circuit consisted of 3 splits, containing 3 regionals and 1 international LAN major each, culminating in a World Championship to finish the season. The season was won by Evan Rogez, Enzo Grondein, and Alexandre Paoli of Team BDS. [10]
For the 2022–23 season Asia Pacific North and Asia Pacific South were combined into a single region with point totals being lowered and each regional event being called the Open, Cup and invitational. This season was won by Zen, Alpha54, and Radosin of Team Vitality, beating Team BDS in the grand finals 4-0 after they completely swept the Spring split, winning the EU Open, Cup and Invitational for the split as well as the Spring Major.[11]
Unlike the past two seasons, there was a considerably longer offseason after 2022-23 accompanying the removal of one of the splits, meaning that the 13th season of the RLCS wouldn't begin until January 26, 2024.[12] [13] The 2024 season saw the removal of the Open, Cup and Invitational system for each region in favor of three new open qualifying stages, those being a double-elimination qualifying bracket, a Swiss-system tournament featuring the top 16 from open qualifying and a knockout stage featuring the top 8 from the Swiss stage. This open qualifying cycle is repeated three times per split, awarding RLCS points after each stage, before the top teams in RLCS points in each region from those stages advance to that split's Major, which features the Swiss and knockout stages from open qualifying and award additional points. The combined standings decides who advances to the World Championship, which was reduced from 24 to 16 teams in the process using the same format as the Majors.
On January 4, 2024, it was announced that Blast ApS, a tournament organizer known for the Blast Premier circuit in Counter-Strike as well as organizing the esports circuit for Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, would take over from Psyonix as organizer for the RLCS in 2024, having previously run the Fortnite Champion Series (Previously run by Psyonix's parent company Epic Games) since 2022.[14]
The first major of the RLCS 2024 season was won by Seikoo, Itachi, and Juicy of Gentlemates Alpine. The second was won by Atomic, Beastmode, and Daniel of G2 Stride, the first All-American team to win an RLCS LAN. season was won by M0nkey M00n, ExoTiiK, and dralii of Team BDS, beating G2 Stride in the grand finals 4-2 - a recreation of the RLCS 2021-22 grand finals, which took place in the same venue. G2 Stride was also the first RLCS team to have reached every LAN event final in an RLCS season. Towards the end of the RLCS 2024 World Championship, it was announced that RLCS would return for the 2025 season in January, with a total prize pool of $5,000,000, the addition of a 1v1 tournament, and changes to the 3v3 tournament which include the addition of a last chance open qualifiers tournament between Major 2 and the World Championship, and expanding the World Championship to 20 teams.[15]
| Season | Dates | Winner | Finals | Runner-up | Location | Ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | April – August 2016 | iBUYPOWER Cosmic | Los Angeles | [16] | |||
| 2 | October – December 2016 | FlipSid3 Tactics | Mock-It eSports EU | Amsterdam | [17] | ||
| 3 | April – June 2017 | Northern Gaming | Mock-It eSports EU | Los Angeles | [18] | ||
| 4 | September – November 2017 | Gale Force eSports | Method | Washington, D.C. | [19] | ||
| 5 | March – June 2018 | Dignitas | London | [20] | |||
| 6 | September – November 2018 | Cloud9 | Dignitas | Las Vegas | [21] | ||
| 7 | April – June 2019 | Renault Vitality | G2 Esports | Newark | [22] | ||
| 8 | October – December 2019 | NRG Esports | Madrid | [23] | |||
| 9 | February – April 2020 | ||||||
| X | August 2020 – June 2021 | ||||||
| 2021–22 | October 2021 – August 2022 | G2 Esports | Fort Worth | [24] | |||
| 2022–23 | October 2022 – August 2023 | Team Vitality | Team BDS | Düsseldorf | [25] | ||
| 2024 | January – September 2024 | Team BDS | G2 Stride | Fort Worth | |||