Update: Dignitas and Endpoint have crashed out of the major, while Queso have made it through to the lower bracket semi-finals as of March 26th 2022.
Original article: 15 of the best Rocket League teams in the world are set to face off in the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) 2021-22 Winter Major starting today.
The Winter Major caps off the Winter Split and takes place from March 23rd to 27th 2022.
UK talent includes RelatingWave, a player at UK esports organisation Endpoint (along with coach Eclipse), ApparentlyJack and Scrub Killa with Dignitas, and Joyo, Rise and Noah at Team Queso.
The Winter Major will have three groups of four teams and one group of three teams that play in round robin matches within their group. Teams that finish first in their group will be seeded into the upper bracket, teams that finish second and third will be seeded into the lower bracket, and teams that finish fourth will be eliminated.
The 12 remaining teams will battle their way through a modified double-elimination playoff bracket to see who will be crowned RLCS Winter Major champions.
The full list of 15 teams competing in the Winter Major are as follows:
Asia-Pacific
- Detonator
Europe
- Dignitas
- Endpoint
- Evil Geniuses
- Team BDS
- Team Queso
North America
- FaZe Clan
- G2 Esports
- NRG
- Spacestation Gaming
- Version1
Oceania
- Pioneers
- Renegades
South America
- FURIA
- Team Secret
Sandrock Gaming also qualified for the Winter Major for Middle East and North Africa, but will not be able to participate due to personal reasons and visa issues.
From March 23rd to 25th there will be a main stream on the Rocket League Twitch channel and Rocket League Esports YouTube channel, and an alternate stream on the RLEsports Twitch Channel to broadcast every match from the group stage and lower round one of the playoff bracket.
During March 26th and 27th, the broadcast will have one main stream and cover the remainder of the playoff bracket.
For the broadcast schedule, alternate language streams and more info about the Winter Major, take a look at the Winter Major Primer blog post here.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
