G2 Esports are a fan-favorite in professional Rocket League, but they haven't always lived up to the hype. After the org acquired the first-season Rocket League Championship Series champions in 2016, the team got knocked around in season two and missed the playoffs before rebuilding around captain Cameron "Kronovi" Bills. And following a hot start in season three, the new lineup fell just short of making the World Championship.

But things have been different lately: the team, once chided for inconsistency and spotty team play, finally clicked. They finished 4th at November's World Championship and then put on a dazzling performance in December to win The ELEAGUE Cup . They nearly added another trophy to the pile last month at DreamHack Leipzig, coming second to Paris Saint-Germain in a tense grand finals series that spanned seven games and finished in overtime.

G2 only succeed when the team is in sync and their passing plays are on point — but when that happens, it's usually Jacob "JKnaps" Knapman who is leading the charge. In just a year, the young striker has gone from a relative unknown to one of Rocket League's absolute best players, and he has arguably impacted his team's success more than any other individual player of late. Ahead of RLCS season five, we spoke with JKnaps about becoming a top pro, G2's recent rebound, and how it all nearly unraveled last summer.

First steps

Kronovi has been an instrumental part of JKnaps' career and success to date, but his influence touched JKnaps long before he aspired to be a professional Rocket League player. JKnaps recalled picking up the game upon release in 2015 after seeing his brother play it. "I played it with my friends and I was hooked," he said. "I watched Kronovi in the very first streams and was like, 'Holy shit, this guy is doing crazy stuff.'"

While the Rocket League pro scene really lives on PC, JKnaps was originally on PlayStation 4 — but he still made a mark on the console side of things. He played on team Momentum with eventual fellow pro players like Chris "Dappur" Mendoza, Timi "Timi" Falodun, and Jesus "Mijo" Gutierrez, and Timi and Mijo were still also on PS4 at the time. They were the only majority-PlayStation team to reach the community power rankings. "That's when I realized, 'I think I could do something with this game,'" said JKnaps.

JKnaps playing onstage with Kronovi at January's DreamHack Open © Jennika Ojala/DreamHack

Before Rocket League, JKnaps never aspired to be a professional gamer. "I'd never done something like that before this, so any money involved with a video game was amazing to me," he said. "At the time, even if I won small tournaments, it was more than my friends were making getting jobs in high school. I knew it could get bigger, and I trusted it — and now it's pretty big. And it'll probably get bigger."

Momentum signed with Selfless Gaming and took a shot at qualifying for season two of the RLCS in 2016, but fell just short of making the cut in North America. JKnaps didn't take it very well, but he admits that the long-term lesson has been valuable.

"I think it was good that we didn't make RLCS, because that was my first-ever experience of a big loss," he explained. "I didn't know how to handle it at the time, but it helped me today realize that you shouldn't be down on yourself after one tough loss. You should try to fight back, and then the next win makes it even better."

On G2... and almost off

JKnaps left Selfless soon after, and while he hadn't yet made any mark on the RLCS, he was surprised to find his services in need by the one and only Kronovi — someone that he had competed against, but never actually been in contact with before.

Kronovi reached out as things were going south with the original G2 lineup, and according to JKnaps, the captain suggested that he could find a third player of his choice to help form the new roster. "I'd never talked to him once, and he literally just said I could make this team," JKnaps recalled. Asked what he thinks Kronovi saw in him, JKnaps responded, "I have no clue, honestly… maybe because we played against them quite a bit, he saw my potential."

At the last minute, they brought in Dillon "Rizzo" Rizzo, a popular streamer who had finished fourth in RLCS season two with Take 3, to complete the lineup. Once they qualified, JKnaps had quickly gone from the pro bubble to being a starter for one of the world's most popular Rocket League teams. "It felt pretty big. It felt like I was handed a great opportunity," he admitted.

G2's current lineup was announced last February, ahead of RLCS S3 © G2 Esports

They got off to an incredibly strong start. In season three, G2 began league play 4-0 and appeared to be totally in sync, with strong passing plays between rookie JKnaps and his veteran comrades. But then they hit a rough patch and seemed to misplace their synergy, losing the last three matches of the season. Finishing 4-3 was still good enough for third place and the regional playoffs, but this hot-and-cold team couldn't get hot again fast enough: they were beaten by Denial Esports in the first round and missed out on the World Championship.

"The team morale was pretty low," he conceded. "It was literally one goal or one game away from making LAN, and we lost four series in a row [to finish the season]. It was pretty heartbreaking — it felt like the team wouldn't recover from it. We were just so demotivated."

JKnaps tried to leave G2 shortly after that season three failure. He planned to team with Mariano "SquishyMuffinz" Arruda and Kyle "Torment" Storer in The Muffin Men, who went on to sign with Cloud9 last summer after winning DreamHack Atlanta alongside Jesus "Gimmick" Parra. However, JKnaps couldn't get out of his contract with G2, so they were forced to try and find a way through the demoralized fatigue of defeat together.

"I always feel like big losses like that, especially because we were the fan favorites and we were piped up... after a loss like that, it's so hard to come back with motivation. That's also why I left Selfless after the season two loss," he explained. "I just felt like something had to change."

Finding cohesion

That change wouldn't come from new teammates, but rather working through their frustrations to find a cohesive path forward. "After that, it was like, 'We have to make this work for RLCS season four. We can make this work and we will, so we have to put in the grind," said JKnaps. "It was all worth it to stick through it."

Despite nearly departing last summer, JKnaps denied any personal conflicts in the group, saying that "everyone on the team is friends" and that they "always have fun on these trips." They're all heading to the Gold Rush 2 community LAN this weekend, and JKnaps suggested that "it's gonna be a blast."

G2 embrace following a DreamHack Open win © Jennika Ojala/DreamHack

But they have had play style incompatibilities to iron out over time, which they had to grind through while experimenting with roles — although the rapidly fluid action of high-level Rocket League means that players can rarely stay put or stick to a single position for long. "I'm a very aggressive player, and they let me play that role," he said. "They know my potential in scoring and all that, and they support me and let me be in the positions I want to be."

However, that only works if his teammates are also playing their best game, even if JKnaps takes the lead in scoring. As Kronovi explained before last season's World Championship , he's taken on more of a support role than in his flashier early days. Even so, they've found that trying to peg players in static roles hasn't always worked out, and that trying to find Rizzo's best fit on the pitch has taken quite a bit of tinkering.

"For [DreamHack] especially and RLCS, we tried Kronovi at the back — but it seems like when we try to just force someone to do something they're not, it just doesn't work out. And we're thinking too hard about it, instead of just playing our game," said JKnaps. "I feel like every time we have failed, it's because Rizzo doesn't play comfortable — and when Rizzo plays comfortable and is in the offense, I think that's when we're playing our best. And when Kro is back, it kind of helps a little bit."

Pressed for details, he continued: "[Rizzo] usually plays uncomfortable when me and Kronovi are up. Rizzo tries to play it safe all the time, and when he doesn't feel comfortable going up because one of us are there, positionally we're cutting him off or something like that — he doesn't play comfortably." Much of their grind has been finding ways for all three players to feel comfortable while actively participating in their victories. "We try to see each other with every ball, and I think that's why we're succeeding now," added JKnaps.

They've also gotten a behind-the-scenes boost from the addition of Jacob "Jahzo" Suda — a past college roommate of Kronovi's — as team manager and coach. He came aboard after G2 failed to make timely DreamHack Summer plans last summer, and now helps ensure that they're on point, in sync, and able to focus on their game. "[Jahzo] sets up scrims every day, he does a lot of stuff for us, and he is a big part of why we are succeeding to this day," said JKnaps.

Rising above

That success has really snowballed over the last few months. G2 came out strong in RLCS league play, finishing 6-1 and landing in second place behind Cloud9. They parlayed that into a strong World Championship run and finished 4th (again just behind Cloud9), and then finally snagged a major trophy with December's ELEAGUE Cup win against the reigning RLCS champions, Gale Force Esports .

G2 claimed their first LAN trophy together at ELEAGUE © Turner Sports

Just a week ago, they were only one goal away from a second consecutive LAN win at DreamHack Leipzig. JKnaps admitted that they were exhausted by that point, but said it shouldn't detract from Paris Saint-Germain's accomplishment. "Our quarterfinals was game five, very close; semifinals was game seven, very close; and then we just had to play right after that again," he suggested. "We were so tired, along with the EU time zones. No excuses, though: PSG played better than us in that series."

Even in defeat, JKnaps tweeted that he was "proud of my team and the results we've been getting." Asked about that, JKnaps said, "I just think it's because it's better than what we usually do, and even losing in the grand finals is better than losing in the first or second round as we did at Northern Arena and X Games. We're more of a top team now."

"We've just been putting in the grind above all teams," he continued. "We've been scrimming almost every day we're home, boot-camping for events — making sure we can stay with the top teams."

It has shown especially in his own game. Kronovi and Rizzo might have been the better-known players coming into this last RLCS season, but JKnaps has firmly established himself as an offensive powerhouse. He secured MVP honors during NA league play, and then knocked out a litany of insane-looking plays at the RLCS World Championship, ELEAGUE, and DreamHack Leipzig. Our roundup of December's top plays included three of his fabulous goals… and then January's article had three more in the mix . He's a one-man highlight reel.

We've seen some otherworldly shots from JKnaps in recent months, and even in the heat of the action, he knows that he's done something amazing — but he can't linger on it for long. "I'm aware that I did something crazy, but I also realize that it doesn't matter if we don't win this series, or if we get out of the tournament," he explained. "My main goal is to focus: even if I score a crazy goal, I want to focus on that next one."

Part of his own success has come from the team's collective grind — those daily scrims, pre-LAN boot camps, and ironing out play style conflicts — but it's also come from his own commitment to the game. Since graduating high school last year, he has fully focused on the game, and now spends his days playing ranked or 6 Mans matches ahead of team scrims. Living in a small town in Nova Scotia, JKnaps said his life is "pretty boring" outside of playing Rocket League.

"I play the game a lot. I don't have any school right now — I'm just full-time Rocket League, and I know I have to practice every day," he said. "It's easy to play on my team; they're very good support players. They kind of realized that I'm the main striker on the team, and they tend to set me up in places I feel comfortable. It's been working out good so far."

'Carry' that burden

Having a bright spotlight on him has benefits, especially as the offensive star of a beloved team. "Being the quote-unquote 'carry' of the most popular team of the world comes with a lot of fans. I think it just gives me a boost of confidence every time I go into a tournament," he said. On the flipside, when G2 struggles — as they have at times over the last year — he certainly hears about it. "I think it's motivation for me, at least. I don't really take it to heart; I just use it as motivation to get better," he affirmed.

As he referenced, JKnaps has been called G2's "carry" very frequently in recent months, and social media jokes about JKnaps opening up his "knapsack" to carry his teammates to victory have flourished. But while the word is meant as praise for his incredible abilities, he thinks it demeans his comrades' contributions.

"I don't like it. I feel like it takes away from everything my teammates do," he said. Although Kronovi and Rizzo haven't said anything to him, JKnaps said he is concerned that it bothers them. "It's saying that I'm basically doing everything on the team, which isn't true at all," he added.

Even so, JKnaps is doing his part to be as strong of an individual player as he can be for G2. He has tried to get into a streaming routine, following the leads of his widely-watched teammates, but hasn't been able to stick with it. He's more interested in grinding out high-level matches and improving his personal play, rather than split his attention between playing and being a personality.

"I feel like my main focus is just getting better and trying to be the best, which might be one of the reasons we're doing so well right now," he suggested. "I've tried to improve every one of my mechanics and my positioning. I just try to be the best player I can. It helps my teammates, and that's all I try to do."

North America has struggled in the RLCS World Championship the last three seasons, but they've done well in other LAN events — and JKnaps believes that the region is finally primed to win another RLCS title. "I know NA is usually the region that's just below EU in skill, but this season, I think NA has it. They have the new NRG with Jstn , they have us, they have Cloud9, and they have Ghost," he said. "They have so many teams that are rising up in the NA scene, and they're all shaping together in the best possible way."

Last season saw Cloud9 emerge as the most dominant North American team, but offseason LANs have seen G2 at least pull equal with them — and JKnaps expects that their rivalry will be "even stronger this season" and good for pro Rocket League on the whole. But while he's diplomatic about some team from his region taking the next RLCS championship, he obviously wants G2 to reign in season five.

"It's the biggest championship in Rocket League, and I want to win it so bad. I think it's time for NA to get another RLCS trophy, and it would be the best to get it with my team. It would just feel so amazing," he affirmed. And until he has that opportunity to hoist the trophy with his teammates, he'll just keep grinding away to make that day come. "I'm just gonna keep playing — that's about it," he said. "Just try to be the best player I can."