In the summer of 2016, a new name slid into the North American Rocket League rankings and refused to leave the top line. Under the tag Exodus, three players in their late teens created a short lived but defining chapter in early Rocket League esports. For just over four months, from June to October 2016, Exodus helped carry North America through the first Rocket League Championship Series season, earned one of North America’s top seeds at the inaugural world finals, and set the stage for the roster’s later moves to Orbit and NRG.
Formation from the Eanix core
Exodus did not appear out of nowhere. The team formed on June 11, 2016, when the existing Eanix roster of Garrett “GarrettG” Gordon, Caleb “Moses” Nichols, and Isaac “Turtle” App left that organization and regrouped under the Exodus name, with Stev and Huskih in substitute roles.
For Moses in particular, the move to Exodus marked another step in a fast but turbulent journey. Earlier that year he had helped lift Kings of Urban to the top of North America, then moved on to Genesis when styles clashed and the Kings project collapsed. From Genesis he jumped again, this time to join GarrettG and Turtle, convinced that the new trio could contend not only in the Rocket League Championship Series Season 1 qualifiers but at the live world finals that would follow.
Exodus carried more than just a new logo and name. It carried a resume. This core was already coming off a third place finish in the first North American RLCS online final, and by the time they officially announced the Exodus tag on social media they were treated as part of the region’s inner circle.
Qualifier 2 and the fight with Kings of Urban
Exodus entered RLCS Season 1’s second North American open qualifier as one of the clear favorites. In a scene still defined by the rivalry between Kings of Urban and iBUYPOWER Cosmic, the new team offered a different look. Moses brought the defensive stability and rotation discipline that had made Kings of Urban a champion. GarrettG and Turtle stretched the field into constant counterattacks, turning clears into immediate shots and rebounds.
In the second NA online final, Exodus made their way through the bracket to meet Kings of Urban in a best of seven series that quickly became one of the early classic sets of Rocket League esports. ESPN’s recap described the Kings as “controlling the tempo” but also noted how Exodus kept answering with their own extended passing plays and counterpunches. The series went the full distance to game seven, where Kings of Urban finally prevailed four games to three.
That narrow loss still achieved what Exodus needed. Across the two North American online finals, Exodus accumulated enough points to finish as one of North America’s top seeds. They joined Kings of Urban, iBUYPOWER Cosmic, and Genesis as the four NA representatives for the first Rocket League Championship Series world finals at Avalon Hollywood.
Avalon Hollywood and an early test against Europe
At the Season 1 RLCS Finals in August 2016, Exodus arrived as one of North America’s top seeds. The eight team double elimination bracket placed them opposite Europe’s third seed, Mock It eSports EU, in the opening round. On paper it was a balanced match. Both arrived as high seeds in their regions. Both favored aggressive offense built around quick passing and rebounds.
On stage, Exodus made that matchup look lopsided. In their first series at Avalon, they swept Mock It three games to zero. Each game was decided by a single goal, but reports from the time noted that Exodus repeatedly shut down European attacks and turned them into transition chances. Exodus took the series by scores of 3 to 2, 2 to 1, and 2 to 1, and ESPN’s day one recap argued that the sweep “showed that Exodus can hang internationally.”
The win pushed Exodus into a winner’s semifinal against Northern Gaming, Europe’s top seed. There, the difference in experience and consistency showed. Northern Gaming swept the series three to zero, sending Exodus into the lower bracket.
Day two brought no relief. Flipsid3 Tactics came into the lower bracket run needing to climb all the way back to the grand finals. According to Psyonix’s official recap, they started that run by dispatching Exodus in a quick three to zero series before going on to eliminate The Flying Dutchmen as well.
Exodus left Avalon with a 1 and 2 series record, three wins and six losses in games, and a joint fifth to sixth place finish alongside Genesis. For a team that had formed barely two months earlier, that record still mattered. They had taken a European favorite and swept them in the opening round. They had done enough to confirm that North America’s top seeds belonged on the same stage as Europe’s top four.
Establishing a top tier reputation
In the weeks after Avalon, Exodus did not disappear back into mid table tournaments. They continued to stack deep runs in online events like Rocket Royale, and their results fed into the growing cottage industry of Rocket League power rankings. When ESPN released its August 2016 rankings, Exodus appeared as the third ranked team in North America, described as having put up “a solid RLCS performance” and as “the clear third place team” in the region behind Kings of Urban and iBUYPOWER.
Those rankings reflected how fans and analysts saw the roster. Kings of Urban and iBUYPOWER Cosmic were the long standing giants locked in their own rivalry. Exodus represented the newer, faster wave, led by a teenager in GarrettG who was quickly becoming known for his reads off the backboard and willingness to challenge everything in the air. The Exodus tag began to show up in more and more VOD title cards and tournament brackets.
RLCS Season 2: Exodus in league play
When Psyonix announced that RLCS Season 2 would use open qualifiers instead of auto qualifying the top teams from Season 1, Exodus had to earn its way back into league play. In the North American open qualifier they did exactly that, placing among the eight teams that advanced into the main group stage. A Psyonix news post pointed out that “the rest of Season One NA’s elite four – Exodus, Genesis, and Kings of Urban – proved that they still deserve their titles” by qualifying again.
League play began on September 24, 2016. Exodus opened their Season 2 campaign with a tight 3 to 2 win over Deception. ESPN’s recap that weekend framed Exodus as heavy favorites and described how Deception pushed them to overtime in each of the first three games before Exodus steadied and closed out the series in games four and five.
Week two was the high point of Exodus under their original banner. They swept G2 Esports three to zero, then swept Take 3 by the same score. By the end of that week the RLCS league standings page showed Exodus at three wins and zero losses in series, with nine wins and two losses in individual games, alone at the top of North America.
Week three reminded everyone how volatile early Rocket League could be. Exodus started the weekend by being swept 3 to 0 by VindicatorGG, one of the lower ranked teams in the league. Later that same day they pulled off a 3 to 2 reverse sweep against Genesis, recovering from a 2 to 0 deficit to take the set. Psyonix’s week three recap still declared that Exodus had “cemented themselves as leaders of the NA pack with a 4 to 1 match record that includes 12 games won,” but the perfect season was gone.
Through three weeks of play, Exodus sat at four wins and one loss in series, with a 12 to 7 game record. They held the top position in the standings and seemed poised to claim one of the two automatic LAN spots awarded to the first and second place teams in league play.
The Orbit acquisition and the end of the Exodus name
The story of Exodus as a named organization ended not with a disband but with a purchase. On October 21, 2016, after week three of RLCS Season 2, esports organization Orbit announced that it had signed the Exodus roster. RL Esports wiki records that date as the official disbanding of Exodus and the moment when GarrettG, Moses, Turtle, and substitute Sizz all moved to compete under the Orbit banner.
In the final week of league play the roster, now listed as Orbit rather than Exodus, finished the job it had started. They beat NRG Esports three games to two and Revival three games to two and closed the regular season in first place at six wins and one loss. That top finish granted them an automatic spot at the Season 2 world finals and secured their place in North American Rocket League history.
From there the players’ story continued under different colors. Orbit’s roster would go on to be signed by NRG, where GarrettG became one of the central figures of Rocket League’s next era. For Exodus as a brand, however, the timeline on the page is short: created June 11, 2016, disbanded October 21, 2016.
Legacy of a brief contender
Measured only by time, Exodus barely lasted a season. Measured by impact, the name marks a distinct phase in early Rocket League esports.
First, Exodus showed how quickly a new brand could rise to the top of a young esport. In roughly two months, an ex Eanix core fused with Moses, ran through RLCS Qualifier 2, and went to Hollywood as one of North America’s top seeds. They left Avalon with a convincing sweep of Mock It EU and a place among the top six teams in the world at the first Rocket League Championship Series finals.
Second, the team’s run through RLCS Season 2 league play under the Exodus name created a clear bridge between the Kings of Urban and iBUYPOWER era and the later dominance of NRG. Under Exodus they proved that their roster could carry a league leading record over several weeks. Under Orbit they finished that record and claimed the top seed. In both cases the core remained the same.
Finally, Exodus left behind a model for how a small, player centered team identity could matter even when it did not last long. The brand never had a large staff, a long list of sponsors, or multiple game rosters. It had three players, a substitute, and a string of results that forced every other North American team to react. For four months, the Exodus name on a bracket meant trouble. That is enough to give this brief organization a permanent place in the early history of Rocket League.