NRG has taken home the North American title of the Rocket League Championships Series (RLCS) Season X. They met an underwhelming SpaceStation Gaming in the grand final and defeated them 2-0.
After 10 months of competition, NRG remains on top of North America. After already securing first place in the regular season, NRG was the favorite going into the RLCS Championships. They claimed a hard-fought victory against G2 Esports 2-1 in the semifinal, and met Spacestation Gaming in the grand final. But NRG took it up a notch and beat SSG 2-0.
LETS GOOOOOOOOOO RLCS X NA CHAMPIONS I LOVE MY TEAM
— Squishy (@SquishyMuffinz) June 20, 2021
NRG takes it all in the NA RLCS X Championships
NRG was already a favorite ahead of the RLCS Season X. While in Europe there was one team that rose to lonely heights with Team BDS, North America remained much closer. The top six traded blows throughout the many main events. NRG continued to impress as well, winning two majors and finishing second in the third. However, their opponent in the grand final was, on paper, a difficult foe. Spacestation Gaming led 6-4 in the two team’s head-to-head record.
The grand final saw a different NRG. They did not struggle much with Spacestation and closed out the set 2-0. Spacestation looked impressive in the quarterfinals and semifinals against Rogue and Team Envy respectively, but ultimately could not bring the same level of play against NRG.
It was a long season with many ups and downs for the North American champions. NRG’s Garrett “GarrettG” Gordon said he looks back on the final with relief.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” GarrettG said. “I’ve gotten used to playing so much over these last nine months. I was kind of sad that this is the last match. And obviously you have the thought, this last match after over 800 individual games we played could end how it started. Split one, the first regional, we lost to Spacestation. So I think it was fitting to play them at the end.”
NRG was not considered the undisputed best in North America throughout the season. It wasn’t until the end of the season that NRG started taking off from the rest.
“It was hard, it felt like very routinely we were second-best,” GarrettG said. “We would make finals and it wasn’t that we were choking, we were just running into these teams that had our number. Rogue had that really good stint, even Envy those first two regionals. It felt like consistently, we could not become the best. We would have events here and there, but it felt like we were always struggling.”
Now that RLCS Season X has finished and crowned all its regional champions, the RLCS players can now look forward to an offseason with the first-ever country-based tournament, the Intel World Open.
