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Team Dignitas Wins Rocket League Season 5 Championship After Wild Final Flurry

They won it last year as Gale Force eSports, but now ViolentPanda, Kaydop, and Turbopolsa have won their second straight Rocket League Championship in the wildest finish to a Rocket League season ever.

Ozzie Mejia

June 10, 2018 1:19 PM

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As E3 2018 gets ready to kick off proper from Los Angeles, CA, a world championship in esports was decided across the pond. Over in London, Rocket League crowned its Season 5 world championship and the Grand Finals came down to two of the game's best teams. And in the end, Rocket League had its most exciting finish to a season ever.

At the end of Game 7, it was a near-buzzer beater by Pierre "Turbopolsa" Silfver that looked propel Team Dignitas to their second straight Rocket League Championship. But Justin "jstn" Morales scored after time expired to force Overtime. And before anyone even had time to take their seat for the Overtime session, Turbopolsa was able to fly in at the 22 second mark to score the series winning goal and give Team Dignitas its second-straight Rocket League championship.

NRG was able to pull ahead in an exciting Game 7 off a Garrett "GarrettG" Gordon score. NRG attempted to hang on, but defending champion Dignitas was not about to give up. Atoning for a brutal own goal earlier, Turbopolsa scored to tie the series.

After two hard-fought series in Grand Finals, it almost looked like the "own goal" would be the defining moment of the weekend, as Turbopolsa had a rare slip.

Team Dignitas took command of the second series, going up 3-1. NRG didn't go away, as Garrett "GarrettG" Gordon and rookie Justin "jstn" Morales came out firing and took an early 3-0 lead in Game 5. But even that lead wasn't safe, as Courant "Kaydop" Alexandre and Turbopolsa came back with two quick goals to make NRG sweat just a little bit. But Garrett was able to put NRG back up by two goals to put Game 5 away and keep North America alive a little bit longer.

NRG would carry that momentum forward and take the next game to force the tournament-deciding Game 7.

The first Grand Finals set began in grand fashion with the first game going to Overtime. Dignitas looked to have things under control with ViolentPanda finding Kaydop, but his shot was off the top of the post. Kaydop was able to pick up the ball again, but just as he missed again, teammate Turbopolsa swooped in and scored the Overtime clincher.

NRG bounced back in the very next game, starting off with GarrettG pulling off a wild goal off the ceiling.

NRG took the next game, but that's all they got. Team Dignitas put the North American squad in a stranglehold, taking the next three to reset the bracket with a 4-1 series win. The exclamation point came off an jstn miss, where ViolentPanda took the ball and quickly took it down the field and netted the series-clinching goal with a shot off the ceiling.

For their first place victory, Team Dignitas takes home $100,000, while runner-up NRG Esports walks away with $60,000.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?