Noble Reclaim South American Rocket League Glory
With the Winter Split's Regional events wrapped up and the major participant list rounded out, it's time for another edition of the Round-the-World Recap. With two days of RLO Masters action and last weekend's Grand Series taking place over the last week, there was high-octane action all across Oceania and South America to go through!
Noble esports pull off the upset
If you take a look at the early days of South American Rocket League, one team towers above the rest. Antonio "Firefox" Schilling, Bruno "Haberkamper" Haberkamp, and Juan "Juan" Carlo da Silva won tournament after tournament until, eventually, their dominance fell at the hands of Erodium. Fast forward just over two years, and that roster - playing with Renan "renaN" Rossi de Oliveira in place of Juan and now under Noble esports - have finally won an RLCS Regional event.
Things didn't start out smoothly for the Brazilians, as they were easily swept aside by table-toppers True Neutral. However, Novus Aevi's upset defeat in the group stage left Noble on the opposite side of the bracket to both of the region's top two sides. Straightforward wins over Carnage Gaming and Rebel (losing just one game to Rebel) led Noble to a rematch against the team that had battered them just three days earlier. Nevertheless, after losing the first game, Noble won three in a row (conceding just three goals in the third of those three) to move onto match point. Quite possibly the harshest 5-0 defeat of all time followed, with Noble throwing away several clear-cut chances in the sixth game before losing in overtime to send the series to a seventh. With 59 seconds remaining on Champions Field, renaN pushed Noble ahead before doubling Noble's lead with a long-range top-corner strike just before the end of the game.
With this victory, Noble have thrown the race for the World Championship wide open again after it seemed like True Neutral and Novus Aevi had the two slots locked down.
Have Renegades recovered in time?
The week started poorly for fan-favourites Renegades. A loss in the Qualification Tiebreaker denied them a spot in January's RLO Masters Finals, with Ground Zero losing just two games (both against Cringe Society in two different matchups) on the way to a simple tournament win. A poor start to the year left many questioning their ability to make a deep run in the upcoming Winter Major. However, clearly, they've had enough of losing. Wins over Solicit, Ground Zero, Cringe Society, Dire Wolves, and Mindfreak secured a first title of the year for the region's everpresent roster.
With the Major coming up this weekend, all eyes are down under as sixteen sides face off for some crucial RLCS X points. With six teams sitting at over 1,000 points, a victory for any of those six would be a huge step towards securing one of the two World Championship spots, with table-toppers Ground Zero already in prime position to do so.
That's it for this week, next time around we'll be looking at Oceania's Winter Major and previewing the upcoming South American Major. As always, stay tuned to GGRecon for more RLCS X content.
Image via DreamHack
