When you think of Scrub Killa, the first thing that springs to mind is probably his World Championship victory back in RLCS Season 7. However, his victory at Insomnia 60 – with former European MVP Bluey and Reciprocity substitute Jessie by his side – gave the young Scot his first real taste of offline competition. Today, we’re going to take a look at the first three years of British Rocket League, from the game’s release in 2015 up until the end of 2017.



2015: A game played for fun, not for competition

After Rocket League’s explosive release and surge in popularity over the summer of 2015, the game seemed destined to take its place among esports’ biggest and best such as Counter-Strike and League of Legends. An early partnership with ESL helped cement this hope for Rocket League’s future competitions, and Season 1 of the MLG Pro League saw top teams from both NA and EU duking it out on the pitch for the first time. Although only one British player managed to qualify (eventual champion Markydooda), the mere presence of a tournament organiser like MLG was hugely promising for the future of Rocket League as a whole.



Unfortunately, back at home, the competitive nature of the game was failing to take off. Despite epicLAN organising what was the first notable offline tournament in the UK in October (where TeamSALT took down MnM RL 4-1 in the grand finals), what could’ve been a huge milestone for British Rocket League at December’s Insomnia 56 ended up being a half an hour kick-a-bout on the main stage. This was accompanied by popular YouTubers obtaining the world record for the most amount of goals in one game. Not the most competitive of events.

Rocket League’s Insomnia debut was not the esports showcase many were hoping for (Credit: DailyEsports)





2016: The start of the RLCS, and the growth of the UK scene

The beginning of 2016 saw the group stage of the RLC Pro League, Rocket League’s biggest tournament at the time. Once again, British players struggled with Markydooda being the only UK representative in the playoffs. However, Rocket League as an esport was about to change forever.



On March 2nd, the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) was announced, where four teams from NA and EU would battle it out in Los Angeles after an online season. British players saw moderate success during the European qualifiers, but in the end, it was just Marky once again who ended up qualifying for the finals. The Scot would go on to achieve great success at the LAN finals, finishing in 2nd place after going on a lengthy lower bracket run before eventually falling to iBUYPOWER Cosmic.



Just under four months later in Amsterdam, when Marky’s FlipSid3 pulled off another lower-bracket run before defeating Mock-It Aces twice in a row to place themselves right on top of the world. A British player had just won the World Championship.



Markydooda was Britain’s biggest star for the first seasons of the RLCS (Credit: DreamHack)

As well as Marky’s victory, back at home things were also looking better than ever. Insomnia had finally begun running fully-fledged Rocket League tournaments, with the Mock-It mix team of Sebadam, Jessie and Bluey taking the title in the most recent iteration of the event just a few days after Marky’s victory in Europe. epic.LAN tournaments were still going strong, with 3 Hot Loids having overcome Chungus and the Chungo’s in their 19th event (their fourth including Rocket League) and Digital Warfare Gaming winning out at epic.20.



Everything changed when an announcement came in November. Gfinity announced their Elite Series, which allowed players from all over Europe to compete in online cups in the hopes of being drafted onto a pro team and playing in London’s very own Gfinity Arena.



Although Rocket League wasn’t formally added to the Elite Series until March 2017, it was here that the groundwork was laid for one of the biggest developments in the history of UK esports, and Rocket League was coming along for the ride.



2017: The rise of the Elite Series:

While Insomnia and epic.LAN continued their regular events in the UK, all eyes were on Gfinity for the inaugural season of the Elite Series. Throughout the first half of 2017, the eight organisations to take part were announced to be Team EnVyUs, Method, Endpoint and Epsilon eSports, with the Gfinity-backed Infused, Prophecy, exceL eSports and Reason Gaming filling out the remaining slots. Broadcast deals with BBC and BT Sport showed a strong commitment to Rocket League from Gfinity. By July, all eight teams had assembled their rosters, with Infused and Method establishing themselves as the early frontrunners for the strongest side.



However, it was neither of the favourites to take the crown as British side Endpoint took the crown in a grand final series against Epsilon eSports. In a poetic finish, the largest British tournament was won by an underdog British side.



Endpoint took home the inaugural Elite Series crown (Credit: Joe Brady)

Over on the larger stage of the RLCS, another British World Champion was born, with Englishman Deevo lifting the Season 3 trophy with remkoe and Turbopolsa. The off-season following Season 3 was a momentous one for Rocket League for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, it was the first time we had ever seen large offline events outside of RLCS. These events saw limited success for UK players. Whilst Markydooda and Miztik hoisted the first DreamHack trophy in Jönköping, Deevo was the only player to reach the semi-finals in both of the other Majors of that off-season.



Deevo saw incredible success on the biggest stage (Credit: Zeebo)

The biggest announcement came when the Rocket League Rival Series was announced. A second division, promotion and relegation, teams keeping their spots between seasons, it was a dream come true for many Rocket League fans. Across both divisions, there were ten British players present out of a possible sixty. Not a bad record for a region mostly known for their failures in many other popular esports such as Counter-Strike.



Back at home, the second season of the Elite Series was just getting started. After finishing dead last in the previous season (and winning just one series), Reason Gaming swept through the competition, winning the entire tournament without dropping a single series. Endpoint couldn’t quite make it two from two, as they lost a tight grand final that went the distance.



The second season of the Elite Series was also notable for being the first offline event to allow coaches to stand behind the players. Reason Gaming’s coach, Micheal “DuckMoriarty” Moriarty, spoke positively of its impact, saying that “the Elite Series had a huge impact on coaches in Rocket League, especially those going on stage. It gave a platform to show how coaches could work in an on-stage fashion for the first time. Teams involved in the Elite Series, including Vitality, started planting the idea in the heads of those at Psyonix that it could work and lo and behold, the last RLCS finals saw coaches on stage.” Although the extent of their impact is yet to be fully discovered, the Elite Series stands in history as the first example of what coaching can do for a team.



Reason were able to dominate the second season of the Elite Series (Credit: Reason Gaming / Gfinity)

That’s it for part one, but part two will go through the rest of British Rocket League, from the fall of Gfinity to the rise of smaller community TOs and the reemergence of the local LANs.

