In the first years of Rocket League esports, Alexander “Sikii” Karelin was almost always somewhere on the European bracket. A German player who surfaced in 2015 and stayed in the top tier through multiple seasons of the Rocket League Championship Series, he moved from early online leagues into the RLCS era with a string of significant runs for Mock It eSports EU, Precision Z, The Leftovers and Fnatic. By the time he stepped away from competition, he had played at the very first RLCS World Championship, reached another World top four, won the RLC Pro League’s inaugural season and helped lead one of the most beloved underdog teams Europe has produced.
EsportsEarnings records Karelin as a German former Rocket League player with just over twenty three thousand dollars in career prize money from eighty three tournaments, almost all of it in Rocket League and split between early independent lineups, Mock It, The Leftovers and Fnatic. Liquipedia’s infobox and the Rocket League Esports Wiki both list him as German and place his active years between 2015 and 2020, underscoring that he belonged to the original generation that built the esport’s first professional circuit.
Early Online Leagues And The SupersonicStars Years
Karelin’s name first shows up in organized Rocket League in the weeks after the game’s release. The Rocket League Esports Wiki lists him on SupersonicStars during the inaugural MLG Pro League Season 1 in late 2015, where the team reached the group stage and later the playoffs in one of the first internationally visible leagues for the new title.
By that autumn he had moved from SupersonicStars to PeaceHaters, continuing to play a steady diet of early European tournaments such as the Rocket Royale weeklies. Those circuits were not yet backed by publishers or major sponsors, but they established an informal hierarchy of European teams and gave players like Karelin a chance to prove they could compete week after week.
The next real jump came with Crown & Jewels. By early 2016 he was part of a roster with paschy90, Yeezy and Killerno7 that entered Rocket League Central’s Pro League Season 1, a global online competition organized by community tournament hosts rather than by Psyonix. EsportsEarnings lists RLC Pro League Season 1 in March 2016 as one of Karelin’s ten largest single cashes, noting that Crown & Jewels took the title over FlipSid3 Tactics and earned roughly six hundred sixty six dollars per player.
That championship mattered beyond the prize pool. Crown & Jewels beating FlipSid3 in the Pro League final signaled that Europe already had more than one contender and that Karelin was comfortable playing long, high pressure series against the region’s most recognizable team. Those months of regular league play and playoff pressure prepared him for the larger stage that arrived once Psyonix announced the Rocket League Championship Series in the spring of 2016.
Mock It EU And The First RLCS World Championship
When the RLCS launched, Karelin shifted into a new role on Mock It eSports EU. The Rocket League Esports Wiki lists him joining Mock It in March 2016 as part of a roster that at various points that season included paschy90, Miztik and later Turbopolsa. Through that core he spent most of RLCS Season 1 as one of Europe’s mainstays, turning months of community tournament experience into consistent RLCS results.
During the first European RLCS campaign, Mock It EU placed highly in the regional group stages and online finals. The RL Esports Wiki records top three finishes in both European group stages and in the two online finals, showing that Karelin’s team spent the entire split near the top of the standings.
Those placements were enough to send Mock It to Los Angeles as Europe’s third seed for the Season 1 RLCS Finals at the Avalon Hollywood theater. On the Rocket League Esports Wiki bracket, Mock It appear as the third European seed with a roster of paschy90, Sikii and Turbopolsa. They opened their LAN campaign against Exodus from North America and dropped that best of five before falling in the lower bracket to Genesis, finishing tied for 7th to 8th in the world in Rocket League’s first world championship.
Even though the run ended quickly, the experience mattered for Karelin’s legacy. Being part of the first RLCS World Championship field placed him among the very small group of players who helped define how high level Rocket League looked on stage and how European teams would adapt from online leagues to LAN.
Precision Z And A Second Shot At Worlds
After Mock It’s season, Karelin moved briefly through WillyWonkerPoodles, playing more Rocket Royale weeklies, before landing in another important project. In September 2016 he joined Precision Z alongside Kaydop and Skyline, a roster that would become one of the most efficient, organized lineups in Europe’s second RLCS season.
In Season 2 league play Precision Z finished inside the top four of the European standings. RL Esports records their placements as fourth in the Season 2 EU group stage and fourth again at the European regional playoffs, where they fell behind FlipSid3 Tactics, Northern Gaming and Mock It Aces but still secured a trip to the Season 2 Finals in Amsterdam.
At the international finals, Psyonix’s official recap notes that Precision Z finished 5th, earning a share of the prize pool beneath champions FlipSid3 Tactics and runners up Mock It but above several North American and European teams. EsportsEarnings lists the Amsterdam LAN as Karelin’s third largest single payday, with two thousand five hundred dollars from the Season 2 Finals and another significant payout from the regional playoffs.
Precision Z did not win a major title, but the stint deepened Karelin’s reputation. He was now a player who had represented Europe at two straight world championships and had adapted to a new roster that played a more structured, possession focused game around Kaydop’s offense.
The Leftovers And An Underdog Run To A Top Four World Finish
Karelin’s most memorable chapter began in early 2017 when he joined forces with Snaski and Ferra under a new banner: The Leftovers. The RL Esports Wiki lists The Leftovers forming in February and entering qualifiers for RLCS Season 3, where they initially looked like a group of free agents pulled together shortly before sign ups closed.
They quickly became something else. Over the course of Season 3 EU League Play, RL Esports records The Leftovers finishing second in the standings, trailing only the rebuilt Mock It but building a reputation for improbable reverse sweeps and resilience in long series. Psyonix’s official regional recap described them as a team known for dramatic comebacks during league play, even as they fell in the European semifinal against FlipSid3 at the regional championship and settled for third place.
At the Season 3 World Championship in Los Angeles, The Leftovers finally brought their underdog appeal to an international stage. The Rocket League Esports Wiki’s world championship page shows them advancing out of the lower bracket with wins over Jam Gaming and Selfless Gaming before falling to Northern Gaming in the final lower bracket round, ending their run in the top four. EsportsEarnings lists that finish as Karelin’s single largest tournament cash, a three thousand six hundred sixty six dollar share of the fourth place prize pool.
For a roster that had started as three unsigned players, the result cemented The Leftovers as one of European Rocket League’s defining stories of the early RLCS era. Karelin’s contribution sat in the space between pure star play and quiet utility. He was often the third man holding the defensive line or the player keeping the ball in the offensive corner so that Ferra or Snaski could pounce. Those roles rarely produced highlight reels, but they allowed a team with no traditional infrastructure to scrap through close series and reach a world semifinal.
Fnatic, The Rival Series, And A Return To The RLCS
That same underdog roster eventually drew the attention of a major organization. In October 2017, European organization Fnatic announced that it was entering Rocket League by signing the core of The Leftovers. A Gamereactor report summarized the move as Fnatic picking up former Leftovers players Snaski and Sikii alongside Maestro, with the goal of climbing back into the RLCS proper.
The Rocket League Esports Wiki shows that the new Fnatic trio spent Season 4 in the European Rival Series rather than in the RLCS. There they won the RLRS league, claimed first place in the Season 4 EU Rival Series and then swept through the Season 4 promotion tournament to reclaim a spot in the main league. EsportsEarnings notes that the Rival Series title and promotion tournament together gave Karelin one of his better one season earnings stretches outside the RLCS itself, including a two thousand one hundred sixty six dollar share for the RLRS victory and more from the promotion event.
In Season 5, Fnatic finally returned to the RLCS field. The RL Esports Wiki records the team of Maestro, Sikii and Snaski finishing eighth in European league play and then fighting through the Season 5 promotion tournament to keep their place. Along the way Karelin added appearances at DreamHack Leipzig 2018, the FACEIT X Games Invitational and several Gfinity Elite Series events to his résumé, though the results were more modest than his Leftovers peak.
Fnatic later described their early Rocket League chapter as a period defined by a “maverick spirit” and risk taking, pointing back to their decision to sign a roster that had already been doubted and discarded. In a 2019 farewell article, the organization thanked the Leftovers core by name and highlighted their leap from the Rival Series to the RLCS as emblematic of that era. Karelin’s time with Fnatic ended in mid 2018 as the organization retooled its roster, leaving him without a permanent top tier home just as the RLCS field deepened and new talents emerged.
Stepping Away And The Shape Of A Career
After Fnatic, Karelin’s tournament record becomes sparse. The Rocket League Esports Wiki lists him as a free agent, but there are no major RLCS era finishes after 2018, and EsportsEarnings records his last significant prize money that same year. Liquipedia’s infobox explicitly lists his status as retired and caps his active years as a player at 2015 through 2020, suggesting that he quietly stepped away from top level competition while the RLCS format evolved into its later multi split era.
By then his résumé already included the key beats of an early Rocket League professional’s life. He had played in community leagues like the RLC Pro League, won its first season with Crown & Jewels and lived through the transition to developer backed RLCS competition. He had stood on stage at the first world championship in Los Angeles with Mock It, returned to the international finals with Precision Z in Amsterdam and made a third world appearance with The Leftovers back in Los Angeles, this time reaching the last four.
Legacy In The Esports Historian Lens
Measured only by trophies, Karelin’s career might look modest compared to world champions and multi time RLCS winners. He never lifted an RLCS title and did not collect the sort of massive prize totals that later stars earned in the post 2017 era. Yet the combination of longevity, consistency and presence at key milestones gives his story a different weight.
He was there when community organizers and streamers built the first serious leagues. He was there when Psyonix and Twitch formalized the RLCS and brought Rocket League into packed venues. He was there when three unsigned players calling themselves The Leftovers showed what an independent roster could accomplish by trusting its own chemistry. Across that entire arc, he remained adaptable, willing to adjust from an aggressive three man rotation under paschy90 to a more structured pattern with Kaydop or to the scrappy, improvisational style that made The Leftovers so beloved.
From an Esports Legacy Profile perspective, Karelin sits firmly among the foundational European pros whose careers bridged the game’s chaotic early tournaments and its first stable league era. His results offer a template for a certain kind of Rocket League professional in those years: not always the headline star, but almost always present when the biggest European matches were played and trusted by a succession of high level teammates to hold his part of the field. That combination of reliability, adaptability and participation in historic moments secures him a lasting place in any serious history of Rocket League’s first generation.