If you’re like me at all, you are loving the surplus of competitive Rocket League esports content we have gotten with the recent format changes, however you may be a little lost on the structure and logistics of the tournaments you are watching. What is RLCS X, and what exactly is this GRID I keep hearing about? In this article, we are going to clarify what exactly it is we are building up to in the spring, as well as a breakdown of what exactly is at stake for all of these teams competing.

RLCS X

So, while Rocket League has this useful diagram above to describe the structure of RLCS X, I was still a little fuzzy on things initially. Fortunately, it’s really not too bad once we break things down. RLCS X consists of 3 splits, being the Fall, Winter, and Spring splits. What we just got done watching was the Fall split, which consisted of three North American regionals and three EU regionals. These then led up to a Major, and then concluded the Fall Split. Continually, as the diagram shows above, this cycle of regionals, which are entirely through open qualifiers I might add, and a major will continue up until the conclusion of the Spring Split, which will then feature the Rocket League World Championship.

The key differences between the splits are the tournament formats, with the fall, winter, and spring splits being 32, 24, and 20 team formats respectively. Beyond that, the differences can be between single or double elimination styles, but varies by type. Now for the crazy part… the prize money. Within RLCS X, there is $100,000 up for grabs for every single regional event… which there are 18 of this season. There’s also $250,000 for every major, and a total of $1,000,000 for the World Championship. There’s even more prize money to be had in “The Grid” , a different aspect of RLCS X we will look at below. The World Championship itself will also feature a total of sixteen teams, with six from NA and EU, two from South America and two from Oceania, which is incredibly exciting news to hear for the competitive scene. For South America and Oceanic teams and their path to the championship, however, follow a different structure which will not be covered in this article.

RLCS: THE GRID

Completely separate from the above mentioned format is “The Grid”, a weekly tournament which has a ton up for grabs for everyone involved, particularly with the implications for RLCS X regional seedings and RLCS major qualifying teams. Essentially, for each aforementioned split, there will be 9 weekly tournaments. Per region, teams can earn a cut of $10,000 and ‘Grid Points’ every week. What do these points mean exactly you might be wondering? Well, the team at the end of that split’s 9 weeks will qualify for that split’s Major.

The Grid is, however, unfortunately an invite only tournament series, in particular being the sixteen teams that earned both RLCS and Rival Series auto-qualifications from Season 9. After each split, the top ten teams (ranked by the grid points) will keep their spots in The Grid, while the bottom six will fight for their lives to survive. In summation, with weekly cash prizes as icing on the cake, this tournament can have dark house implications and candidates make their name known by raising their regional seeding or qualifying for the major, however it has no World Championship implications outside of that, which brings us to our final point about the new format.

RLCS X and the World Championship

With the normal structure, each team also earns points based on respective performance as well, however for different purposes. Regionals give points to qualify for Majors and for the World Championship, while Majors give even more points for World Championship qualification, however it is a fresh competition each time a Major comes around in each of the three splits as far as points are concerned. That about sums up the path the teams must take and what exactly is at stake for each of these tournaments we have been religiously watching, and I know it really helps me understand everything much better. I hope this helped clear things up for you as well, and until next time, good luck and have fun friends!