NRG +275 Favorites to Win Rocket League Championship Series Finals

• The Rocket League Championship Series heads to Madrid for the Season 8 finals on December 13th to 15th
• NRG are the slight favorites after winning their third straight North American final
• Renault Vitality enter as the defending champions but are no longer the top team coming out of Europe

The Rocket League Championship Series Season 8 finals features the top 12 teams worldwide. They’ll compete from December 13th to 15th in Madrid for a $200,000 grand prize.

RLCS Finals Odds

All odds taken Dec. 11

Three Straight NA Championships

NRG has been completely dominant in North America. They’ve won three straight North American championships and five overall. Although they’ve been winning their region time after time, they haven’t won a World Championship. The addition of Turbopolsa to the roster was meant to change all of that.

NRG signed him after Season 7 to join GarrettG and JSTN, in hopes that the three-time World champion will bring a trophy back to NRG. Through the Season 8 regular season, NRG went 6-1, only losing to Rogue in the final week of play. In the playoffs, NRG dropped eUnited 4-2 and then swept the Pittsburgh Knights to prove they’re NA’s best.

The one question mark lies in the strength of NA in Season 8. Staples like Cloud9 and G2 dropped to the bottom of the standings as SpaceStation and Pittsburgh Knights rose up. NRG completely wrecked everyone in North America, but is NRG just really good, or is NA weaker than we’re accustomed to? I’d wager that NRG is an absolute force and in the very least they’ll be sitting in grand finals.

The Cream of Europe’s Crop

European Rocket League was a lot more closely matched in Season 8. Reciprocity emerged as the top seed from Europe after a 4-0 sweep of Renault Vitality in the finals.

Yes, the finals were one-sided but just prior to that, Reciprocity squeaked by Dignitas 4-3 in the semis. Even in the regular season, Reciprocity were 5-2 but only managed a game record of 17-11. They were able to win the Season 8 playoffs in Europe, but it was by a tight margin.

Season 7 Champs

Renault Vitality is no stranger to the world championships after they took down G2 in the grand finals of Season 7. They are the defending RLCS champs but are coming off of a difficult campaign. For a while, they appeared middle of the pack and finished the regular season at 4-3. Then after beating mousesports 4-0 in the playoffs, Veloce Esports pushed them to the brink.

Vitality held on to win that series before getting dropped by Reciprocity. Vitality have the third-best odds to win Worlds but after falling well short in the grand finals, those odds seem a little rich.

Veloce Has Lots of Value

The much better value comes from Veloce Esports who got the short side of the odds stick. They sit at +1100 even though they were one game away from defeating Vitality in the semifinals. It’s understandable to see why the odds are concerned about them. They recently just made it into the RLCS from the Rival Series, and brought on Kassio from Triple Trouble back in August. Despite that, the team has emerged as one of the stronger units in Europe.

They were right behind Reciprocity for first in the regular season, and put up a fight against an experienced Vitality squad. Veloce are the perfect dark horse pick and could make some noise in their first World Championship.

For the teams from South America and Oceania, they simply aren’t worth a look. In the RLCS Season 7 Worlds, the teams outside of NA and Europe made up 9th to 12th place. NRG look to be the strongest team, but if you’re looking for a dark horse value pick, take a risk on Veloce Esports.

Pick: Veloce Esports (+1100)