Event Chronicles – RLCS Season 3 Europe Regional Championship
In the spring of 2017, European Rocket League spent two months playing through a strange story. It began with an open qualifier where dozens of known rosters and upstart lineups fought for eight league spots. It lurched sideways when one of the qualified teams was disqualified for using an ineligible player. It settled into a five week league where new names pushed past old ones. It ended on a single May afternoon where Mock-It Esports claimed their first regional title and four European teams secured tickets to the Season 3 World Championship in Los Angeles.
For Event Chronicles, RLCS Season 3 Europe is not just a ladder of results. It is the first season built on the new league model introduced in 2016 and refined here, with Psyonix and Twitch running the season under an open qualifier from March 5 through March 12, league play from March 19 through April 23, and a European Championship on May 7, 2017, backed by sponsors Old Spice and Brisk. It is also the season where a rules ruling, an improvised tiebreaker, and an underdog team called The Leftovers helped tilt Europe’s competitive order.
Open Qualifier and the rise, then fall, of ZentoX
Season 3 Europe began with an open qualifier. Any eligible European trio could enter, and they played a double elimination bracket over two weekends. Early matches were best of three, later rounds best of five, all compressed into a path where only the top eight would make it through to league play.
One of the biggest stories inside that qualifier was ZentoX. The roster built around Classic’, hello, and Itachi pushed through the bracket and, on paper, claimed one of the eight spots in the European league. For a brief moment, they were the eighth seed in a region already packed with organizations, reigning world champions, and veterans from the first two seasons of RLCS.
That moment did not last. After the qualifier concluded, RLCS staff performed their routine eligibility checks and discovered that one ZentoX player did not satisfy the residency requirements listed in Section 4 of the official rules. In a competitive ruling later summarized on Rocket League’s channels and preserved in community threads, Psyonix explained that playing with an ineligible player meant the team had to be disqualified from the season entirely.
ESPN’s esports coverage the same week described ZentoX as the number eight European qualifier and reported that their removal came down to a residency issue with one player, not an in-game rules violation. Instead of simply promoting the next team on the bracket, RLCS officials chose a different solution. They announced a four team tiebreaker among the squads that had tied for ninth through twelfth in the open bracket, a miniature round robin to decide who would take the open league spot.
The tiebreaker playoff brought together Red Eye, PENTA Sports, Leaf Esports, and Copenhagen Flames. Scheduled for March 17, just days after the ruling, it put three best of five series on the line for each team. PENTA beat Red Eye and Copenhagen Flames and then won a decisive match over Leaf Esports, finishing the round robin at three wins and no losses. That record gave PENTA the final place in European league play. ZentoX had disappeared from the season, but the vacancy they left shaped everything that followed.
Building the European league field
By the time league play began on March 19, the eight European teams were set. Northern Gaming entered as the defending European champions, carrying remkoe, Maestro, and Deevo into another RLCS run. FlipSid3 Tactics, winners of Season 2’s World Championship, returned with Markydooda, kuxir97, and gReazymeister. Gale Force eSports arrived as a roster that had qualified as Pocket Aces before being signed by a new organization midseason.
Mock-It Esports appeared in a very different form from their Season 2 lineup. Kaydop and Fairy Peak! joined Miztik, bringing together one of the most lethal offensive cores Europe had seen to that point. Resonant Esports entered after acquiring the former Team Secrecy roster partway through the league, while Cow Nose brought a scrappy, less established lineup that had originally qualified under the Xedec Nation banner before leaving the organization.
The Leftovers were the strangest story in the field. Formed at the end of February by Snaski, Sikii, Ferra, Continuum, and Mout, they did not have an established organization behind them. As Red Bull’s later interview with Ferra put it, they were a team that had “banded together at the last minute” and surged through league play. With PENTA joining through the tiebreaker playoff, Season 3 Europe blended old names and late bloomers in a way that few predicted.
The structure was simple on paper. Eight teams played a single round robin, five weeks of online matches. Each match was a best of five and every team received a small appearance fee per series. The top six would qualify for the European Championship bracket in May. The top two would receive byes into the regional semifinals and would also be in strong position for Season 4.
Five weeks that reordered the table
League play ran from March 19 through April 23. In that span, the story of Europe changed from one weekend to the next.
Northern Gaming began solidly, splitting their opening week against PENTA and The Leftovers, then climbing the table as the weeks went on. By the time the league ended, they sat alone in first place with a series record of six wins and one loss and a game record of twenty wins and ten losses. That finish secured the first semifinal seed and confirmed that, even after roster upheaval from the previous season, Northern Gaming remained one of Europe’s standard bearers.
The bigger surprise was The Leftovers. Early coverage from outlets like Sky Sports noted that this new team had “come out of nowhere,” yet sat at the top of the European standings by midseason with a four to one record. Week after week, they took series to all five games and still found ways to win. They finished league play at five wins and two losses, second in Europe and just one series behind Northern Gaming. For a roster with no organizational backing, it was a remarkable climb.
Below them, FlipSid3 Tactics and Gale Force eSports shared identical four and three records. FlipSid3 held third place on the league’s tiebreakers, with an 18–15 game record, while Gale Force finished 16–13. Mock-It Esports joined them at four and three with an even game record of sixteen and sixteen, a sign of how often their matches swung between dominant offense and shaky defense.
The bottom of the table was more brutal. Resonant Esports and PENTA both finished at two wins and five losses, with similar negative game records. PENTA’s path hurt especially. They had fought through the ZentoX tiebreaker to reach the league at all, only to land one series above the drop. Cow Nose, after an opening week that included a memorable win over Team Secrecy, eventually slid to one win and six losses, eighth place in Europe and elimination from the Championship bracket.
As the table settled, the six teams going into the European Championship were locked in. Northern Gaming and The Leftovers took the top two seeds and their byes to the semifinals. FlipSid3 Tactics, Gale Force, Mock-It Esports, and Resonant Esports filled the remaining four spots. The full bracket would only be played once, in a single elimination run on May 7.
Season awards and Kaydop’s MVP league
Before the Championship began, Season 3 Europe handed out league awards that told their own version of the story. Based on per game statistics accumulated over the five weeks, the accolades highlighted both established veterans and new stars.
Golden Striker, the award for the league’s most prolific goal scorer, went to kuxir97 of FlipSid3 Tactics. He averaged just under 0.94 goals per game. Right behind him, separated by a thousandth of a point, was Kaydop of Mock-It at roughly 0.94, followed by Nielskoek of Cow Nose at 0.90.
Clutch Playmaker, based on assists, went to Miztik of Mock-It, whose passing numbers edged out FreaKii of PENTA and ViolentPanda of Gale Force. Savior of the Season, determined by saves per game, went to FreaKii, with Kaydop and Zensuz of Cow Nose close behind.
Most Valuable Player for Europe, however, was given to Kaydop. Mock-It had finished only fifth in the standings, but his combined scoring, defensive statistics, and impact in key series convinced the RLCS panel that he had been the single most valuable player of the league. It was a hint of what would come on Championship weekend, when Mock-It finally strung together a complete run.
Championship day and the Mock-It run
On May 7, six European teams met online for the Season 3 European Championship. RLCS and RocketLeague.com later described it as one of the most intense days the series had seen so far. The format was straightforward. The third through sixth seeds opened in a best of seven quarterfinal round. Northern Gaming and The Leftovers waited as top seeds for the semifinals. The third place match and the finals would also be best of seven, and the top four teams from the day would qualify for the Season 3 World Championship in Los Angeles.
Mock-It’s regional title run began in the quarterfinals against Gale Force Esports. Gale Force carried a higher league finish, a reputation as one of Europe’s most complete teams, and the momentum of the Pocket Aces roster that had sat near the top of the standings all season. Mock-It, by contrast, had been inconsistent, hovering between flashes of brilliance and midtable uncertainty.
The series did not follow the league script. Mock-It took Gale Force down four games to two, sending paschy90, ViolentPanda, and Chausette45 out of the tournament in fifth or sixth place and pushing themselves through to a semifinal date with Northern Gaming. In the other quarterfinal, FlipSid3 Tactics met Resonant Esports, the organization that had absorbed the former Team Secrecy roster midseason.
That match turned into one of the legendary RLCS series. The official recap on RocketLeague.com called it “one of the greatest matches in Rocket League history,” and it earned that label the hard way. The reigning world champions from FlipSid3 found themselves pushed to a seventh game by al0t, Mognus, and Metsanauris. Only in the final minutes did FlipSid3 manage to edge out a four to three series win and preserve their chance to defend their world title.
The semifinals gave Europe two very different stories. Northern Gaming, first seed and league leaders, faced Mock-It. The Leftovers, the league’s surprise second seed, met FlipSid3.
In the first semifinal, Mock-It continued their surge. They took Northern Gaming to a full seven games and emerged with a four to three win, punching their ticket to the European final and confirming that their uneven league record did not reflect their ceiling. For Northern Gaming, the loss still came with consolation. By reaching the semifinals, they had already secured their place at the World Championship as one of Europe’s four qualifiers.
On the other side of the bracket, FlipSid3 shut down The Leftovers four games to two. The Leftovers’ run from last minute roster to second seed finish in league play and top four at Regionals would be enough to send them to Los Angeles as well. FlipSid3 moved on to a final that few had predicted when the season began.
The third place match mattered for pride but not qualification. With four World Championship spots available and the finalists already through, the playoff for third decided only placement and prize money. The Leftovers recovered from their semifinal defeat and beat Northern Gaming four games to two, finishing Europe’s RLCS season as the third place team and earning a higher seed for Los Angeles.
That left the final. Mock-It Esports, with Kaydop in an MVP season and Fairy Peak! and Miztik around him, against FlipSid3 Tactics, the defending world champions. In the official recap, Psyonix acknowledged that almost no one had predicted this outcome for the European bracket.
Mock-It did not treat themselves as underdogs. Over six games, they outscored and outpaced FlipSid3, refusing to allow the series to reach a deciding seventh game. When the sixth game ended, Mock-It had won four games to two and lifted their first European Regional Championship.
RocketLeague.com summarized the final standings in straightforward terms. Mock-It Esports took first place and ten thousand dollars with a roster of Miztik, Kaydop, and Fairy Peak!. FlipSid3 Tactics finished second with gReazymeister, kuxir97, and Markydooda, earning sixty five hundred dollars. The Leftovers earned four thousand for third. Northern Gaming took two thousand for fourth. Gale Force and Resonant Esports each claimed twelve hundred fifty dollars for fifth and sixth.
Legacy inside the larger Season 3 story
Because Event Chronicles focuses only on this tournament, its direct story ends when Europe’s bracket closes and the four qualifiers turn their attention to the World Championship in Los Angeles. Yet even within that boundary, RLCS Season 3 Europe left marks that lasted longer than a single season.
Mock-It’s regional title validated the decision to assemble their new roster. It confirmed Kaydop as one of the best forwards in the world and showed how quickly Fairy Peak! could turn pressure into goals at the highest level. The MVP award from league play and the regional trophy from Championship day together wrote the first complete chapter in Kaydop’s long RLCS legacy.
FlipSid3’s narrow escape against Resonant and second place finish proved that the defending world champions still had the resilience to survive best of seven pressure. The Leftovers translated a story that began with free agents scrambling for a spot into a second seed finish in league play and a third place result at Regionals. Northern Gaming, though beaten in the semifinal and in the third place match, still topped the regular season table and qualified once again for the world stage.
The ZentoX ruling and PENTA’s tiebreaker journey left their own imprint. They reminded players and organizers that RLCS was governed by eligibility rules with real consequences, and that disqualifications would be resolved through structured competition whenever possible, not administrative promotion.
From a distance of years, what stands out about RLCS Season 3 Europe is how much of the region’s next era is visible inside this one season. Veteran organizations and new names shared the same bracket. A hastily formed roster called The Leftovers forced themselves into the center of the standings. A Mock-It roster that many expected to fall short of the top four instead won the region. And a ruling about an ineligible qualifier reshaped the bracket before the first league match ever began.
For esportshistorian.org’s Event Chronicles, Season 3 Europe belongs on the shelf as the moment when the early RLCS era reached full league form in Europe and, in the same breath, showed how fragile and unpredictable that structure could be.