Version1 knocked down Karmine Corp at the very last possible moment in the RLCS Spring Major upper semi-final with a game 7 buzzer beater.
Having fought tooth and nail, Karmine Corp joins fellow Europeans Moist Esports in the lower bracket while V1 is up against the Middle East’s Falcons Esports in the upper final.
Version1 continues to prove NA’s strong form at the Spring Major
Where Europe was once the stronger region, North America has started pulling away in 2022. After a bad Winter Major, Europe had something to prove in the Spring. With Version1’s victory, all European teams are once again in the lower bracket.
Version1, however, wasn’t that sure about getting past Karmine Corp as the series went on. The Europeans continuously clawed back, even reaching match point. Version1 looked nervous and required a tactical pause to get their heads back in the right mindset.
“When you’re on stage, a lot of the time you kind of forget what your game plan is,” Robert “Comm” Kyser said. “We started playing a lot more nervously. We changed some things up in our rotations and how we were challenging, we cleared up a lot of gaps in our rotations and once we did that it was a lot easier.”
Following that timeout, V1 brought the first best-of-7 of the tournament immediately to game 7. But it took until the very last moment, when KC’s Joseph “Noly” Kidd kept the ball up at zero seconds, that V1 took the opportunity to seal the deal. Scoring the 3-2, V1’s Landon “BeastMode” Konerman sent them to the upper final.
VICTORY 🎉@version1gg #RLCS pic.twitter.com/fUSc9hZSWE
— Rocket League Esports (@RLEsports) July 2, 2022
Moving forward in the RLCS
“Keeping [the ball] up isn’t the mistake,” Comm said. “The issue was both AztraL and Itachi were right on top of each other in the midfield, and fully trusted Noly to get a crazy read against BeastMode on the sidewall and none of them went back. If there was one person back, it was not a goal.”
“I think the reason that he kept it up was because they had 30 seconds of pressure,” coach Jayson “Fireburner” Nunez added. “I think that’s why the other two cheated up, and just trusted, probably in the heat of the moment; ‘we have a lot of pressure, he’s gonna read it,’ and then BeastMode came in and read it super fast and scored the goal.”
Comm also added that the moment that Noly kept it up, he knew it was going in.
Going into the upper final, Version1 will face Falcons in their first-ever appearance in the top three for a non-NA or EU team; having taken on plenty of NA teams throughout the season already, that’s exactly what V1 hoped for.
