Top Blokes – a Rocket League team with mostly UK players – came out on ‘top’ in a situation worthy of this pun for The Grid EU’s first week of competition.
They defeated Galaxy Racer in the finals in a dominant 4-0 sweep.
In their jolly good run to the finals, Top Blokes met fellow UK rivals Guild Esports in the semi-finals which went all the way to seven games.
The final match against Guild was incredibly tense between the two UK rivals, with Archie scoring the only goal of that game to beat them, allowing Top Blokes to bid ‘cheerio’ to Guild.
Top Blokes will be encouraged with this win as The Grid is now shorter for the Winter Split, and by their top four finish at the first Regional Event.
Coming in from EU Regional Event 1, Playoffs for Week 1 of The Grid saw a number of upsets, starting with Team Liquid falling to Triple Trouble as they continued to struggle in finding consistency with their new line-up.
The powerhouse teams of Giants Gaming, Team Vitality and Fall Major champions Team BDS all failed to make past the quarter finals, with Giants losing to a surging Galaxy Racer 2-3 in the Round of 16 (who also later beat BDS). That’s despite all three teams making the top three places in the Regional Event and placing well in the Group Stage before playoffs.
BDS’s loss, however, presented the opportunity for their player M0nkey M00n to post a cheeky tweet:
It was a good first week for UK talent and teams as well, with the semi finals featuring at least one player from the UK in all four participants of Guild, Galaxy Racer, Redemption and Top Blokes (we’ve also included some coaches below in the talent line-ups):
- noly, Deevo and Gregan (Guild)
- eekso, AndytheMandy (Galaxy Racer)
- Kash, Womped (Redemption)
- FlamE, archie and RamS (Top Blokes)
Rocket League has a host of UK talent overall – you can see some of the other UK rosters on Liquipedia here.
Teams have little time to celebrate or sulk, as the second EU Regional Event kicks off on December 3rd and the second week of The Grid starts on December 8th.
Regional Event 2 will look to answer a lot of questions people may have after this result, especially for BDS and Vitality, if they will return with a vengeance.
‘For sure, we are never satisfied with anything other that winning it all’ – RamS
Megalodontus briefly spoke to Top Blokes coach Reece ‘RamS‘ Mullins after their win. He touched on their progress and their aims moving forward.
“Thanks for reaching out! It’s a testament to the work we’ve been putting in to getting better every single time, we’ve managed to be consistent from the beginning of the season, so now it’s all about pushing as high as possible and this is a great first step.
For sure, we are never satisfied with anything other that winning it all. We’ve made sure we approach everything one step at a time, and when we feel we’ve achieved that small goal, we increase it and keep working.
We still need to reach a level where we are competing against BDS on a more consistent basis, and in order to do that we need to be able to get consistent results against the teams that usually give us trouble – Endpoint, Vitality, Giants and Galaxy Racer – so we are always working forwards and getting better.
“We’ve managed to be consistent from the beginning of the season, so now it’s all about pushing as high as possible and this is a great first step.”
It’s tough to say if there is going to be change at the top. I could see Vitality falling off a little but not BDS. BDS have an incredible level of consistency and are very fast to play against, it makes you feel like you’re in chaos while playing against them.
I think Vitality have shown the ability to slip up in a few of the regional events – not entirely, but a poor series here and there – so with the Double Elimination format, I could see upsets happening in the of the regionals this split.
I think stylistically, we have a good chance of being able to go toe-to-toe with BDS moving forward. The series we play against them are getting closer and we are constantly improving – so hopefully it’s not too long before we can claim our own regional champion title!”
Megalodontus is a miraculous survivor from the mass extinction and somehow learnt how to use his stubby fins to operate complicated mechanical equipment and drink tea. Worryingly for cryptozoologists, he’s been writing League of Legends articles too.
A self-taught writer who’s had the privilege to work with good editors who aren’t terrified of his pearly whites, Megalodontus is often seen writing either independently or for various websites such as this one. When not writing, he usually runs it down mid in real life and is fascinated with watching paint dry.
