Found in pads of 12 or 100, this yellow substance keeps our battle cars supersonic and in position to make a play, but what if instead of only managing your own tank properly, we also kept our Rocket League opponents in a shortage of boost?
Rocket League has one of the highest skill ceilings in the world of competitive gaming and with an ever-evolving meta, it was only a matter of time that boost management became more and more crucial for any rocketeer’s success.
At the end of the day, car can only go brrr if it’s provided with the right amount of boost, our dearest and closest friend on the pitch. Our main source of fuel (besides motivation and that next rank) is found all around the pitch with standard maps providing us with a total of 28 small boost pads, that yield 12 boost each, and six big boost pads or orbs which will fill up your tank, no questions asked.
Our beloved boost will inevitably be the difference maker between a bump and a demo, between a hard touch and a soft touch and between making that save or not. With every score resetting the ball down the middle and respawning all competitors with the standard 33 boost meter, however you control your tank between the kickoff and the resetting score is up to each player and their playstyle.
After having talked about boost management before, covering the in-game hitboxes and the best pathsaround the pitch (a highly-recommended read before diving into more advanced boost strategies), we’ll now discuss the wonders that boost starvation plus proper pathing, tight rotations and a little bit of baiting can do for your rank in no time.
First and foremost, let’s discuss what starving your opponents of boost means in Rocket League. No matter the game mode, be it car soccer, Dropshot, Snow Day or Hoops, boost starvation will always come in handy when it comes to opening up a defense. In short, boost starving is the methodical disruption of your opponent’s boost management where you will push to collect specific pads that will later be empty in their pathing back to defend the following attack. This way, not only are you keeping your tank full, but you are also slowly and efficiently keeping their tank low or empty.
Boost starving is important for any prolonged offensive advance because it will give the attacker options and windows. In general terms, these two things happen because the less boost a defender has, the more they’ll seek out boost pads; the more they seek out boost pads, the more they are out of position. This result is also known as a window. This window allows the attacker to start pushing harder and become more aggressive down the field as, according to your boost management and awareness of your opponents’ pathing, they will become progressively slower as they sit low on boost while you are full -- this is where your offense starts to create options.
Even if the defender remains in the correct rotation, you just put yourself in a spot where you have both possession and control and your opponent is low on boost and, hopefully, panicking. This window, provided you use the correct attacking option, should lead to a score. That is why boost starvation works in Rocket League.
Picture: Psyonix
Now that we understand the importance of boost starvation, we can proceed to learn the effective way of taking your opponent’s fuel to keep them rushing, panicking and out of position. The number one rule of boost starvation is to not get greedy; boost starvation is great when done properly, but it needs to be done in a surgical fashion. A frenetic attempt to starve your opponent will leave your net open or your teammates in a tough spot as there is a time and place to make such a push.
You will need to accept that starving the opposing team is a mid to long-term game plan, not a last-second Hail Mary play, and the whole process can be started from the very first kickoff with a five-minute game clock ahead of all rocketeers. One of the easiest places to practice boost starvation is in the Duel playlist. As Dignitas’ own Jack "ApparentlyJack" Benton brought up in content creator Wayton “Wayton” Pilkin’s video, the key to breaking down a defense in a Duel match is to take a basic shot and use the time it takes the opponent to recover from the save to boost starve them out of the corner pad they just cleared the ball to. Repeating that process for the other corner and keeping possession will leave you with a full tank of boost, the ball and a grounded opponent waiting in the net; this is where you would go for the kill shot, preferably in the air to keep it as unsavable as possible, and score thanks to your boost-hogging abilities.
This process, however, is a little more complicated when it comes to doubles (2v2) or even standard (3v3) where two or four more people are also collecting pads and rotating around the field. This makes the boost starving push a little more confusing. At the end of the day, though, a 2s match is just two simultaneous 1v1’s being played and while more attacking options become available with an extra opponent and team member on the pitch, this same strategy Jack brings to the table (shot, steal, shot, steal, score) can break down and boost starve a 2s defense, as well.
The real tricky part, one that most professional players might agree with, is boost starving in a 3v3 match, the official Rocket League Championship Series format. When rotations, challenges and touches are pixel-perfect with consistency reaching world-class calibre, the moment to push for boost starvation becomes slimmer and slimmer by the rank up, especially at the highest skill level. That’s why there’s a very systematic approach towards boost starvation on a six-man pitch and here’s how to achieve it.
A simple yet effective way to get possession for your team and set up a strong offensive advance is to bait the opposing team to give the ball away which can be achieved through either faking or pushing past the ball on purpose. Both actions can only be started by the frontman AKA first man in rotation (the closest defender to the ball and in front of the defending net). Faking is pretty self-explanatory, all you need to do is circle towards the ball threatening a touch, challenge or fifty and then circle back ny driving away and getting into the first or second spot in your team’s rotation. Otherwise, an overly aggressive challenge to the point of missing the ball completely will also do the trick and create some separation between the opponents and the ball. The goal of faking or pushing too hard is to bait whoever possesses the ball to give it away to your second man in rotation as you, the former first man, is now on thief duty. The key part of the process comes in your return: once you get their defense to turn the ball over to your second man with the fake or the aggressive challenge, you will need to seek as many boost pads as possible from the opposing half (the more the better) especially if they are 100 boost orbs.
This strat will allow your team to get possession and start pushing harder with a two-man offense as you return to the rotation with a full tank of boost, taking as many pads as you can on the way back as possible. The two-man attack by your teammates does not need to lead to a score, however. In fact, the attack only needs to lead to an earned save where the defenders use as much boost as possible, and the shot-taker or the assisting player return to the rotation stealing even more pads. You will push into the second man spot to keep the ball in the opposing half and repeat the process in an infinite sign or eight-shaped ebb and flow until your offense proves too fierce and the shot becomes unsavable.
Picture: Psyonix
The timing of this strat will be key in keeping your backfield taken care of and the offense aggressive enough to not warrant a breakaway, hence chemistry, tight rotations, and comms becoming more and more essential as players progress through the ranks. While there are plenty of ways to push creating a window and options to capitalise on the opportunity, boost starvation really comes down to brick-breaking the defense one touch, pass, shot at a time without giving away possession. Practice makes perfect but there is still no better way to practice boost starvation than in an online lobby so queue your favourite playlist and pay close attention to your opponent’s boost levels next time you attack the net. If done correctly, boost starvation becomes an unstoppable force… the best defense is a good offense and vice-versa, right?
For more gaming content, visit our dedicated articles section including Rocket League guides and interviews like our talk with Dignitas’ own Joris "Joreuz" Robbin or with teammate and RLCS World Champion Kyle “Scrub Killa” Robertson.
