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What can we expect to see in the RLCS Season 3 LAN finals?

Riot games. (Image: Riot Games)
Roar Rookie
29th April, 2017
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With the end of the RLCS Season 3’s League Play just around the corner – and the soon-to-be arrival of the RLCS Season 3 World Championship Finals – it’s safe to say that a deeper analysis on what potential teams we could be seeing at the Finals is necessary.

As we enter the RLCS’ third season, we see the entry of a new region; Oceania.

It’s a region who has fought consistently within itself to grow and provide an entertaining level of competition, and from this consistent growth, has earned itself a spot at the RLCS World Championship Finals.

However, the region’s players are at a large deficit – with latency, distance, and overall high ping being a contributing factor in any online competitive multiplayer game, the Oceanian Rocket League players have largely had to become better, faster and overall stronger players by themselves.

With the Oceanic region being, for the most part, locked away from the rest of the world – the players don’t quite get a chance to compete against the top tier teams from across the world too consistently, making the journey to constant improvements a much more uphill battle.

With Oceania aside, we’re still at the same RLCS we’ve had for the past two seasons. North America (NA) and Europe (EU) provide incredible, consistently top-tier play week-in, week out, until the Finals have been reached – so the real question arises; who are we likely to see in the finals?

The answer comes from a rather more in-depth analysis of each region’s best contending teams.

In past experiences, we’ve grown a trend of generally just watching and seeing whoever finishes top two in the region, with our eyes set strongly on those two teams representing their regions and hoping they play well at the LAN finals.

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However, this season, the competition is on levels beyond its’ predecessors. With North America in particular, the top team – NRG – has successfully destroyed just about every other team they’ve come up in a contest with.

However, teams ranked between second place and fifth are not quite so dominant of the rest of the competition – with their only difference being the goals point differentials.

Currently, we see Atelier at the second Place spot – looking to clinch their Finals chances on their first year in the RLCS; but the other equally dominant teams of the region, including common fan favourite G2 esports, are extremely hot on their tail.

In the European regions, there is a little more of a defined hierarchy regarding teams, standings, and the general ‘panning out’ of the European RLCS League Play.

Northern Gaming, consisting of Deevo, remkoe and Maestro, are holding out a very promising and powerful display over the European region in Rocket League, currently holding a score of 6-1 throughout the entirety of the League Play, with their only loss being to the second-place team ‘The Leftovers’. The Leftovers secured their victory over Northern Gaming in the very first round of the EU RLCS League Play.

The Leftovers hold an almost-equally convincing score over the EU region, going 5-2 in the League Play with one week remaining, meaning they could tie equal first for the region if Northern Gaming loses and Leftovers pick up the win. Regardless, they are looking at being the top two EU representatives at the RLCS World Championship Finals – a surprising turn of events.

However, you can never tell what teams like Flipsid3 Tactics – the RLCS S2 World Champions – and Gale Force esports (previously Pocket Aces) will do. EU as a region might have a much clearer line-up going into the final week of the EU RLCS League Play, but their standings are as closely-bunched and their futures as unforeseeable as the rest.

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Moving down to the map to the newly-introduced region of Oceania, where the competition might be a little more secretive to the rest of the world, but easily equally as competitive.

Alpha Sydney hold the top seed at the moment in the Oceanic region, with their fast prowess and competitive play that has seemed to hold them at the top of the region for months now. However, shifted team rosters on the side of JAM Gaming and the unsigned competitive team Sand Castle hold endearing results – with the last week potentially going just about any potential way for these top three teams, as they all look to secure the contested Top one and two spots of the region.

JAM Gaming, who’s openly famous for it’s incredible attacking force almost specifically on their star player Bango, have been somewhat out of sorts these last few weeks. Sand Castle, who recently picked up the ex-JAM Gaming player SnarfSnarf in exchange for their core member Lukorice, couldn’t look better over the last few weeks, taking out impressive wins over just about every top-contending team in the region, including the previously undefeated-for-almost-2-months team Alpha Sydney.

Overall, with the Throwdown RLCS LAN Finals coming up this weekend – these top three teams are easily the focal point for a lot of attention in the Oceanic region right now.

It’s hard to say how Oceania will play on the international stage – as a region, the international experience essentially isn’t there at all, especially when it comes to international LAN events like the RLCS World Championships.

Teams from NA and EU, such as G2 or Northern Gaming, will undoubtedly have an edge in terms of experience – assuming they make the LAN finals, which has potential.

However, upsets do happen, and the Oceanic region definitely is not a newcomer to upsetting events on international stages, with the same thing happening in other games such as DOTA2, League of Legends and CS:GO (Counter Strike: Global Offensive).

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Whether Oceania can keep up with the pace set by such teams is an entirely other question, and seeing how the region fairs up on the international stage will be something that everybody can take as a point to learn in preparation for the next season.

It’s looking more likely that the event will come down to a competitive game between Northern Gaming and NRG – and likely, this game will strike up a passion in viewers and players alike, on a level we haven’t quite seen before.

Both teams have a relatively strong following of fans internationally, and their performance the entire year around is a testimony to the prediction of their fallout at finals. Best of luck to all teams involved in the RLCS and the finals themselves!

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