Finally, it’s time to set aside roster news for some actual professional Rocket League.

The first ever Rocket League Summit is set to take place in California this weekend. The casual atmosphere that Beyond the Summit creates provides a nice change of pace from the usual over-serious DreamHack-style production. Rocket League Summit will feature a captain’s draft tournament, an all-star game and even high school game night classic, Mafia.

It is still a major LAN though, and with a $50,000 prize pool, the players are going to take the group stage matches seriously. DreamHack: Valencia was more than a month ago, and fans are craving some on screen action. Rocket League Summit is ready to provide.

Fans will also see the newly minted versions of several rosters including Pierre “Turbopolsa” Silfver who will be making his debut with NRG. Frontline will play their first tournament since parting ways with PSG Esports. Linus “al0t” Möllergren will continue his long trial run with The Bricks as they search for a new third.

Rocket League Summit Group Stage

For fans of good old fashioned 3v3 Rocket League, the Group Stage is the main event. The eight team pool of Cloud9, NRG, G2, Rogue, Renault Vitality, Frontline, Dignitas and The Bricks will be split into two groups of four.

After round robin play the top three teams will advance to the playoffs on Sunday. The top two teams from each group start in the winner’s bracket and the third place finishers start out in the loser’s bracket. It’s double elimination for the top four and single elimination for the bottom two.

Fans could see Turbopolsa take on the Dignitas team he won two World Championships with for the first time. Renault Vitality and Cloud9 haven’t had much to do since DreamHack: Valencia so fans will be able to check in with them.

The Group Stage will be the most serious part of the event, but the players will likely be encouraged by the atmosphere to relax and go for flashy plays instead of going through the motions. It’s not in a studio, it’s not in front of a live audience, it’s just in a private house in LA where pros can kick back and have some fun playing Rocket League for once.

Group A features Renault Vitality, NRG, G2 Esports and Dignitas. Group B pits Frontline, Cloud9, The Bricks and Rogue against one another. There will be a rematch of the World Championship Grand Final and Turbo’s first game against his old team in the same group.

Group play will be Friday and Saturday and the playoffs will take place on Sunday. All matches will be best of seven in the playoffs.

Rocket League Summit Crew Battles

The Crew Battles concept is the most interesting idea because it deviates the most from the standard Rocket League fare. Basically it’s a The Brawl-style captain draft but with a major twist.

Four captains draft six players and the crews compete in 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 series. The captains determine who will play what event and there will be seven game series shuffling through the different events.

The first game of the series will be 1v1, the second will be 2v2 and the third will be 3v3 and so on. The losing team gets to pick the format for game four and the leading team before game four picks game five’s format and so on.

Outside of the old Gold Rush events, Rocket League hasn’t really had much diversity in its competition so adding in 1v1 and 2v2 feels nice. It also creates an interesting conundrum for the captains. Who should play the 1v1? Whose skills translate best to 2v2 and whose work best in 3v3? It’s a really interesting idea, and fans will see many players who don’t typically team up playing together.

There could be a 2v2 game with Maello “Aztral” Ernst and Jesus “Gimmick” Parra vs. Jack “Speed” Packwood-Clarke and Austin “AyyJayy” Aebi. The possibilities are endless.

The Crew Battles round robin stage will happen on Friday and the playoffs for the event will happen on Saturday.

Other Events and What to Watch For

There will be other small events like a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament and games of Mafia on Friday and Saturday. Sunday’s action is reserved for the main tournament’s playoffs.

Mafia is a role playing party game where players try to eliminate all the innocents or try to identify the Mafia depending on the role. It’s pretty standard party fair but it should be interesting to see Rocket League casters and players interacting in an entirely new environment.

There will also be an All-Star game where fans can vote in six players to play against one another. The 3v3 match will take place on Saturday.

This is not going to be a self-serious, massive budget Rocket League event. It will be a lot more like the Gold Rush events of old. Put a bunch of casters and players in a room and broadcast what happens.

A common complaint among the Rocket League community is that players don’t show off their personalities enough. Sometimes players are more reserved but other times players just don’t really get a chance to. If a player doesn’t want to stream or express themselves on social media then there isn’t much of a platform for them to show who they are.

Rocket League Summit is the perfect opportunity for that. The big names like Turbopolsa and Kyle “Scrub Killa” Robertson will shine for sure, but fans will also get a glimpse into the personalities of spotlight averse players like Nicolas “Wonder” Blackerby and Reed “Chicago” Wilen.

The broadcast will begin on August 15 at 12:30 EDT. The stream will be available on twitch.tv/BTSRocketLeague. Full schedules and information can be found here as well as on Liquipedia.

Featured image courtesy of Beyond the Summit.

Follow me on Twitter: @connorssanders.

You can like The Game Haus on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles from other TGH writers along with Connor!

“From Our Haus to Yours”