Renegades Win the RLO Grand Slam (Review)
Competing for the second-highest prize pool in Rocket League Oceania’s history (Outside of the RCLS), eight teams made it to the finals, with some big sides such as Fury and Canberra Havoc falling in the qualifiers. With $46,000 up for grabs and a bizarre hybrid bracket format, Oceania’s best went head to head, and didn’t disappoint.
Round 1
After automatically qualifying as first and second seed, Renegades and Cringe Society went to work against Ground Zero Gaming and Team Skyfire respectively. RLCS Season 9 champions matched up against Season 8 champs in the first match of the finals, and Renegades pulled off a spectacular comeback, overhauling Ground Zero Gaming 4-2, despite losing the first two games. In their first match of the Grand Slam, due to automatic qualification, Renegades took just the first two games to warm up before finding their form. Kamii, Siki and CJCJ kicked on from their narrow defeats in the opening two games to turn on the style, scoring nine goals in the next four games, only conceding thrice. With the awkward layout, Renegades proceeded to the semi-finals, with Ground Zero falling to round 2 versus Mindfreak after they comfortably beat Overt in their opener.
Cringe Society didn’t even need to warm up. The second-seeded team jumped straight into action in their opener, clean sweeping Team Skyfire who had looked impressive throughout qualifiers. Without even having a glove landed on them, Cringe took the first round 4-0, advancing into the semi-finals, and Team Skyfire left to lick their wounds in round 2 versus Arora Esports, who joined them after another clean sweep over R!OT Gaming.
Click to enlargeRound 2
Round 2 was where it got juicy. Mindfreak versus Ground Zero, and Arora versus Team Skyfire. Ground Zero had a lot to prove, and Mindfreak was looking to knock over the favourites as underdogs in the first duel of round 2, and what a spectacle it turned out to be. After trading blow for blow, the two didn’t end a game being separated by more than a goal and heading into game seven, the couldn’t be pulled apart. Mindfreak set out with immense aggression, with Ground Zero being forced into 34 saves in the first six games, but the latter was mastering the counter-attack and took a 2-0 lead in game 7. However, they were pegged back to 3-3, and as the game reached zero seconds remaining Spydodge miraculously managed to direct a save from Fever onto the post to force overtime. Only after three minutes and 46 seconds was the deadlock broken, with Cavemnaben crashing home a loose ball to win the tie.
The same theme occurred in Arora versus Team Skyfire, with an array of 3-2 and 2-1 scorelines going either way, and it took a thrilling game seven to separate the pair. The hero here was Arora’s ZeN (zenulous) who latched on to a Levi cross after a minute and a half, before keeping Skyfire out for the remainder of the game. Arora moved on to play Renegades, and Mindfreak advanced to play Cringe Society.
- Read more - Rosters to Watch for The Kickoff Qualifiers
Semi-Finals
It was clear to see that the game sevens had affected both sides as they both lost their opening matches convincingly. Arora ended up being swept 4-0 by Renegades who found scintillating form, and Mindfreak was only able to take two games from Cringe Society who quickly thwarted any ideas of a comeback, taking the tie 4-2.
Click to enlargeFinal
The final was set with the two sides that the format favoured the most, but nothing can take away from their entertaining performances. Despite being set up to be an enthralling encounter, it ended up being a straightforward victory for Renegades, as they managed fifteen goals in five games to take the final 4-1, and with that claimed the $14,000 winnings.
Renegades were crowned your RLO Grand Slam Champions.
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Image via Renegades Twitter | @Renegades
