Kashing In Their Lucky Stars
The Rocket League Championship Series just saw its most action-packed week yet, with the EU and NA Grids taking place in the week, and the X Games NA Regional starting on Saturday night. Since there are so many players to choose from, I’m going to narrow my selection down to just players in The Grid, and focus on the NA Regional in a week’s time, once the event has concluded and the twelve teams attending the major are confirmed. Starting the list at number five...
5. KURTIS “KASH” CANNON - REDEMPTION
Redemption’s star player makes a return to the list with an incredible 1.12 goals per game over the two-day event, in which he played seventeen games. Bolstering that insane scoring stat are his 3.76 shots per game, the second-highest of any player at the event, and a goal participation of 70.45%. Two group stage wins were enough for Kash and company to comfortably secure a place in the Spring edition of The Grid, but has jeopardised their chances of reaching the Winter Major; they will have to play a tiebreaker to determine who progresses.
4. ARCHIE “ARCHIE” PICKTHALL - TOP BLOKES
The best all-around player in Europe in the last week was Top Blokes’ archie, who turned an astonishing average of 4.37 shots towards the net in each game, resulting directly in 0.95 goals and likely contributed significantly to his 0.84 goals per game. His goal participation of 89.47% was the highest at the event, but it was not enough to be the standout player for the week, or even in the region.
3. REED “CHICAGO” WILEN - G2 ESPORTS
Up next is the MVP of the NA Grid - Chicago put Dillon "Rizzo" Rizzo and Jacob "JKnaps" Knapman on his shoulders and set G2 up for success with 0.84 goals per game and 0.78 assists per game. An admirable 72.22% goal participation rate should not go without mention as the long-standing team heads towards the Winter Major.
2. OLIVER KENNETH “PERCY.” ORTIZ - ALPINE ESPORTS
My runner up is exceptionally valuable to his side but hasn’t always received the credit he deserved this split. This time around, he made his intentions very clear - locate the net and shoot the ball at it by whatever means possible. Of the 3.63 shots sent goalward per game, 0.84 were goals, and 0.74 became assists leading to a shooting percentage of 78.95%. If that wasn’t enough to convince you, over percy.’s 19 games, he blocked a huge 2.53 shots. Even this though, was not enough to become the Standout Player of the Week...
1. JOSEPH JAMIE “HIBBS” HIBBERT - TEAM SINGULARITY
Team Singularity had just one job - stay in the top six of The Grid standings, and get above Redemption, Guild Esports, and Endpoint to qualify for the major. The latter was dealt with by 6pm GMT on the day of the playoffs - Redemption, Guild, and Endpoint had all fallen in the round of sixteen - but with Oxygen Esports, Team BDS, and Team Vitality still threatening to take them out of the top six, hibbs and friends were not yet out of the water. Triple Trouble stood in the way of Team Singularity and a spot at the Major, but hibbs delivered.
Hibbs scored six of Singularity’s ten goals. Hibbs turned eleven balls towards the target. Hibbs was Midas, and all his touches were golden. In a little over three weeks, it is Team Singularity who will be attending the major, and all should fear the man who does not know how to miss.
Showing Rocket League withdrawal symptoms? The X Games Regional continues this Saturday from 6pm GMT and if you can’t wait that long, stay tuned for more news, interviews, and features from GGRecon!
Images via DreamHack
