I just wanna say that the reason Vitality's RLCS streak was lost is due to Zen's absolute crime of a haircut

After hearing Daniel's iconic casting during the 2v2 tournament, someone needs to invite him to the next podcast.

NA when imports invade their region: its because we pay them so much better! There's so much more money here! NA when explaining why they don't bootcamp: There's no money! The economy is in shambles!

I asked Evoh for his thoughts on the importance of bootcamps for having good chemistry. He said "Ye!" ...

Imagine the Kansas City Chiefs, to stay in the NFL next year, have to beat the Leighton County Church mutual flag football club. This is how RLCS currently operates.

Rizzo was firing off today! Loved his takes !

As someone who plays for a college in NA i feel the "play to clip and not to win". Happens a lot in CRL and college teams / players in general

I totally agree with what Garret was saying. And I think the root of the problem is NA ranked scene. These kids grow up playing ranked. Getting used to throwing games, the teammate blaming, the overall immaturity if the whole thing and the whole "trying is cringe" thing. Bumping is cringe. Using strategy on kickoff is cringe. It's all fucken nonsense. Then it bleeds into pro scene... and you get people complaining about how bad NA is then troll scrims for 45 mins. He nailed it. Hopefully some of the players listen to this podcast and learn a little something something.

Die hard NA here... without question we saw that EU is far ahead of NA. Not even close. Looked like G2 the only team that could even compete with top 8 EU

Absolute heater of an episode

Reality check from that bootcamp discussion. Professionals will thrive. Whoever wants to put the effort in will likely succeed. In league of legends for years NA and EU players never made it to a top 4 at the World championship. Then they started bootcamping in Korea(the strongest region to play ranked queues to get the best practice) before the World Championship and two EU rosters have come runner up in the 2017 and 2018 Worlds. I agree with GarrettG, the talent is there. The talent is phenomenal in NA, but they clearly aren't willing to put in the effort to win. Winning is the priority at the professional level. Seems people don't seem to want to win.

Awesome podcast, I am an avid podcast watched and i thoroughly enjoyed this. I do not play RL anymore but am familiar with the faces and that was enough for me. Thanks guys!

sure am glad this show exists for the RL ecosystem

I definitely dont think squishy not qualifying is crazy, he hasnt been that guy for a while. Shopify didnt play well, they had jstn playing like hes retals and the team as a whole is pretty new. I think it came down to muffinmen are realistically bubble team quality and shopify are too new and choke artists. That being said, the seeding (or lack there of) is terrible. The argument complaining about the amount they have to play and that its stressful is a little silly to me. Pro play/ esport is a full time job, unless you franchise the esport then they cant just give seeding by team popularity. They need to at least prove themselves in some way at the start of a season with these new teams, unless players accumulate seeding points individually and are carried to wherever they are moved to. Having to reset points completely for a proven roster or one with 1 alteration is a little silly to me but understandable if they implemented a better system of doing so.

The issue with NA is that the players and fanbase are delusional about how good they actually are. The fact that EU has won almost every Major in the past 3 years, or in the entire history of RL. Yet NA still brags about being equal to EU, saying crap like G2 is the best team in the world after one regional.

Not to mention that the main stream didnt have drops which draws in a lot of people as well. So good numbers despite that is kinda wild.

This episode was excellent! I think it was funny though that is went from criticising the bracket - which in many ways rewards teams that put in more effort, to talking about how NA has a problem because they are lazy. The rando teams are starting to pop up more in NA than EU because the bubble teams put more effort in. This bracket is bringing about the cultural change faster. I agree that the orgs need some protection though but the more open it is, the more it stops lazy people staying at the top

Finishing top 4 and then having to go through a qual is beyond dumb. Yeah sure they should be able to beat those teams and qualify but no team is immune from getting knocked out when you have to play a qual every time. The top finishes in the region should auto qual for the next one. If they don’t finish top 4, 8 or whatever the bar is set at then make them go qual again. But top finishers shouldn’t have to.

Players should suck it up and deal with it. You want to play? Practice. You want to make it? Be the best. Most of the complaining probably stems from “pros” wanting a stable paycheck. If Justin was good enough and his team was good enough, they wouldn’t have lost. With that said, the one concession could be top 4 from previous tourney could auto qualify for the next one and only next one.

I won’t get too far into the specifics in debating on bootcamp, but it does have to be said the US by itself is almost the same sized area as the whole of Europe. A country compared to a continent is a bit crazy. I still don’t think it excuses it. But some Europeans think it’s so easy cause their area or travel is so small. But still I think some players could be lazy to even fly or maybe an org doesn’t make an effort to fly the players out. Flights can get expensive for a common person but I would think with the salary and org That can’t be an excuse

Honestly US are just complacent. they are not only falling behind in Rocket League but in many esports, and in most cases the first thing that is talked about is the work ethic, the laziness and complacency they have, since players still make money they are happy as it is.

Fortnite used to have the teams that placed well in the grand finals the previous season auto qualify for the next seasons grand finals but then they got rid of it about a year or two ago which everyone was annoyed about and epic never gave any explanation for.

These players can't bootcamp, but Retals, Arsenal, Chicago, and Appjack live in the same apartment complex. With others not far away. It's not impossible. The best case against it would be the kids that haven't graduated, and laws with that, but I think for the opportunity, I know I would do it for my child.

On top of making things more professional, bootcamping also helps players bonding and in a team based game such as RL, team environment is HUGE

Crazy part about the competitiveness that EU has is that even their top 8 teams can literally place better in NA than NA players can

On the boot camp discussion (with regard to transportation specifically). First of all, this is not excusing NA teams for not boot camping. They could if they wanted to. But the fact is that there ARE additional barriers for people in the US to travel than in EU (and France in particular). I’ll start by saying I’m in NA, in Texas, a state that is roughly the same size as France. If I want to visit family in my very same state, I have exactly 2 options. I could fly or I could drive. All other options are either completely unavailable or not reasonably viable. This might be a me thing… but both options are extremely stressful for me. I’ve been to EU a couple of times and have taken high speed rail across distances roughly equal to the distance between my home and my family. Even after getting off of a 11-14 hour international flight, the rail experience was completely stress free. So simply the introduction of stress to a travel experience makes me far less likely to make those sorts of trips. This is real. I visit my family once a year (max) in my own state because traveling across my own state is a nightmare. I don’t know if extensive high speed rail in NA would directly result in more boot camping. But increasing options for getting around the country would improve so much. Sorry this is long. But the utter lack of public transportation infrastructure in this country is my #1 issue. I was flabbergasted after going to Europe to see what we’re missing out on here. It truly does make life for the average person significantly better, and connects people to each other much better than our dumbass car culture here.

Babe rizzo, also on the point about moving teams to the best region to improve during the offseason this has been done for a long time in other very established esports like dota 2, sc2, csgo and the results literally speak for themself if you ever want to have a look into the teams that did it and their placements before and after. This doesn't only affect the lower teams meant to be benefiting from this travel bootcamp but also the global scene giving it more time where many different regions can blend their styles into a far greater product rather than only have inter-regional play exist for a couple weeks out of the year.

45:20 I’m actually so surprised the sidemen haven’t been approached by an org owner to make a sidemen org tho. Like imagine how many decals they’d sell 😭

A lot of people trying to compare other sports saying stuff like, for an NFL team to qualify they have to go through high school teams or something but that’s just not the case in rocket league, everyone signing up are SSL level, absolute monsters. Shopify played bad, yes, but the fact that they’re now out of the running for the major after working SO HARD to get top 4 is NOT a problem with the team, it’s the format. You think orgs are going to want to stay around a scene that’s as volatile as that? Are you INSANE? A format like this seems like they’re TRYING to kill the game, seriously.

I play on a college rocket league team, and we won our first semester we played in our league. It truly did feel like we were the only team that wanted it more. I think people's competitive fire In NA is weaker compared to EU due to the fact there's more maturity in the youth over there. Kids are expected to grow up faster and learn to be adults quicker. Sports seem to be a large part of EU culture and I think the fact that EU is so much more divided in terms of country helps that. Everyone competes against other countries, and the culture is different across all the countries. Whereas in NA there's only the U.S and a few other countries that compete against each other. And because of the fact that the culture in NA is so similar, many pros or even CRL teams don't seem to have this competitive fire that EU does. Most pros are friendly with each other here, and like Garrett said, are satisfied being on the top but not being the best. I honestly can't see a solution to this problem. It's up to the players to improve and take competing serious. People in Europe as well are way more into soccer than in the NA. That's why I believe a lot of major countries in EU like England, France, etc, are so culturally invested in RL. There's more of a passion from the players, fans, and everyone involved in the Rocket League scene there. It's sad to see tbh but I just hope there's more players like me out there who want to make a change in the NA RLCS scene, people who strive to be the very best one day.

When rizzo said "open is fine but not too open" that reminded me of the 8 million people just walking in from the southern border lmao

Given that Epic hasn't listened to the community for the last several years, what are the chances that they will make any changes

DIGNITAS boot-camped last year when they over-performed in NA with Andy Evoh and Dreaz 🤷‍♂️

1:31:14 m0nkeym00n is. You make 1 mistake in his ranked 2s lobby and you are on his list forever. Haha

Wow jstn and squishy being out of the league is something i fear RLCS will never recover fully from

People saying Shopify Rebellion shouldn't play TSM in lower bracket: You do realize that SR nearly lost before getting to that final round, right? They almost lost to two practically unknown teams. They nearly finished 33rd in the Open Quals. They were playing absolutely atrociously.

I think the take on giving these teams a spot just because they made top 16 or top 8 is disrespectful to these teams who no one knows and are putting in the work, coming into a elimination match, seeing world champion Justin and top team Shopify and not folding. Just because y'all want the stability doesn't mean that these teams deserve to be there. SR didn't deserve to be there. Playing teams worst than you and having an excuse for that is terrible. Everyone who plays ranked run into Smurfs all the time and the win % isn't high. You beat these people who are worse than you and you're the ones getting paid. SR also had the experience. Justin is a world champion, there isn't anything better than that. He scored the best clutch goal ever on Dig. There is no excuse besides the other team performed and they didn't. If these orgs are worried about the screen time, then pay the players who want to win, not who just want a check. Make them have goals they are absolutely required to hit instead of just paying them to queue. You guys talking about this format is stressful, but anyone else in the world with a job has stress behind it. We can't baby these players. That's how we got Faze and NRG being garbage and players like Mist not having many hours but playing on the weekend. With this format I think it should be bo5 but regardless these teams should show up. We can't baby these professionals.

People always clown on other people for trying, caring, making the effort, etc. It's such a lazy weak mindset that drives me nuts how pervasive it is. One hit wonders tried and cared for years before we ever heard of them. It wasn't overnight. And if it was, that's cool that they cared and tried to make something special. Good grief. Completely agree with Garrett on this point.

EU people don't ever realize how big the USA is. California, 1 of 50 states, is bigger than the UK/France. It's like when the EU says Americans do travel but our states are as big or bigger than EU countries. You can drive a couple hrs and be in a different country, but in US you can drive hours in Texas and still be in Texas.

EU>MENA>SAM>OCE>APAC >SSA>NA

EU pros treat it like a career and NA pros treat it like a hobby. That's the difference.

Good one

Can we get Arsenal on one of these please

No way NA coping that top 4 in NA is top 12 EU because of landmass

i just wanna say i had to play gentle mates for qualing to day 2 in regional 1. It was fun to finally get to play seikoo and itachi 2 of my favourite players but it was also a sad thing to have to play the 3rd seed aka the team who came 2nd right after destroying some seed #500-200's. Its gonna get annoying to run into "pros" right off the bat

it is for sure culture, to start out of RL, NA as a whole is lazy by nature and you hear garret say how NA just wants to clip farm, its such an NA thing to focus on being flashy and selfish and if you do good thats all that matters compared to EU where if you win with 5 points you did your job, moving closer to RL to football/soccer and to a factor I think is important, I think the lack of talent in NA is not only due to a lack of competitiveness and laziness from NA but also because football is an EU sport and I dont have the logistics but I feel as if more EU players play RL and care about it because soccer is their sport, where as in NA it is probably the 5th popular sport. This isn't saying there are more EU players than NA, but I'm saying more EU players get into RL and genuine want to compete and love the game because football is their thing, which leads to a healthier "bubble" scene. While that is a reason EU is better I still think the general laziness and lack of competitive fire is what puts NA in the dirt. You see it in professional NA sports all the time that X player has what it takes to be the best but he is lazy or doesn't care enough, I just feel like the fire doest burn as strong in NA as it does in EU. The regions feed off each other, EU is only getting better because everyone is playing each other and breaking the ceiling.

Ppl will still cry about a 30yo squichy.

The comparison with football isn't a great one. Things like the FA cup allow for every team to play and by the same token anyone can technically go and play Man City'. They won't because they won't get to that stage. Auto qual to main event is too much. Auto qual to day 3 is fair. Also the assertion of 'playing players much worse than you' is stupid. The thing with RL at level is consistency is key. No top EU teams had this issue and NA wouldn't have these issues if they had teams that were that much better. The disrespect to groups like gbuffo is crazy.

My take: Bootcamp should be standard. 13y/o's are less likely to bootcamp so make the minimum age 18. And filter out the shitters who dont wanna pay for a ticket to w/e city in NA to bootcamp.

What is the problem? If they are sooo strong they will always win against "open" noobs.......

I keep saying this, they won't CARE ABOUT ROCKET LEAGUE until It surpasses Fortnite numbers. Epic DOESN'T GIVE A Shit about any other title except Fortnite. Like I cannot stress this enough the writing is on the wall.

Let’s be real, France is ahead of NA but not the rest of EU. The 4 top EU teams are French what is in the water over there

How do we have the same conversations every year: The season starts, and NA viewers think they have the best team in the world, + boot camps are good. Am I inane, or is this not the same as 2021 and 2022

feels empty without rise:(

You have to atleast acknowledge that rlcs giving out clean streams and embracing streamer feeds is just giving so much revenue to streamers who are reacting to their content. And I doubt the rlcs stream owner has the exact goals and wishes of epic games but you're acting like trading 100k viewers = good advertisement for epic games

Let's be honest and just say France instead of EU.

Bro Joyo clears all these guys, even Rizzo. Easy.

EU mentality: if your second place you’re first loser Na’s mentality: participation trophies for all! Yay

hot take, but complaining about NA not boot camping is dumb. Like I'm EU, and the argument that we (or i should really say they) want it more is valid. But I can't fault someone for not boot camping. These guys have different things they have to take care of, such as school and IRL stuff. And unlike France, these guys still live states away from each other, in a country where public transport is awful. Paying for a flight every month just isn't feasible, no matter how much these guys are paid

France > NA > The rest of EU tbh

Rapid was right. If the original moist team stayed together they would be the reigning world champs rn. KC is further evidence unless you think Atow is miles better than Joyo.

Garret’s point is something I’ve been saying for awhile now. Na boys are not built like Eu boys! Eu develop men whereas Na develop victim timid minded boys who are confused about what gender they are now. It’s so sad to see and yes Na boys are very sheltered! This is exactly why Eu has better consistency and CLUTCH factor! If you compare the two regions even down to post game interviews it’s clear how much more mature Eu players are. I mean cmon look at the Evoh interview…. Sad. Everyone thought it was funny but i guarantee you Dig, Stax, Production all the folks working behind the scenes didn’t appreciate that moment and probably found it annoying

Johnny im sorry to tell you, G2 smokes Karmine Corp

I love you JB, but here recently you have been way too invested/affected by what TBates says. Dude is a troll, as your fan, please stop mentioning him.

Love Johnny, but he dominates the conversation too much in these settings.