Event Chronicles – RLCS Season 5 Europe Regional Championship
In the spring of 2018, European Rocket League entered Season 5 of the Championship Series with a world champion already in its ranks and a new sponsor logo on one of its most dangerous teams. Gale Force Esports were the reigning global kings from Season 4, while Renault Vitality brought car manufacturer backing and a refreshed look to a roster that already carried years of European experience. Around them, a tight pack of contenders fought for two prizes at once: the European regional title and four tickets to the World Championship in London.
For Europe, Season 5 ran as a five week online league from March 18 to April 19, followed by a one day regional championship on April 22. All of it was played online from the RLCS studio and broadcast on Twitch as part of Psyonix’s official league structure. The stakes were straightforward. Six teams would survive league play to reach the regional bracket and automatically secure their places in Season 6. Four of those six would move on to the World Championship. The bottom two league finishers would have to fight for their lives in the promotion tournament and risk losing RLCS status entirely.
Format, Prize Pool, and Field
Season 5 Europe kept the structure that had become familiar by 2017. Eight RLCS teams met in a single round robin league, playing best of five series over five broadcast weekends. Every team met every other team once. The top six entered the regional championship, while the top two from league play skipped the quarterfinals and started their playoff run in the semifinals.
Psyonix’s own Season 5 announcement framed the year as a step up from Season 4. In January the league office opened signups for the North American and European open qualifiers and announced that Season 5’s total RLCS prize pool would climb to five hundred fifty thousand dollars, a mid six figure investment in a still young esport. Within Europe, Rocket League Esports Wiki records that each of the eight league teams earned ten thousand five hundred dollars in league prize money, with a further twenty five thousand dollars distributed in the regional championship.
The European field looked familiar but not static. Gale Force Esports retained their world championship core of Jos “ViolentPanda” van Meurs, Pierre “Turbopolsa” Silfver, and Alexandre “Kaydop” Courant. CompLexity Gaming entered with the same three players who had reached the Season 4 World Championship final as Method: Linus “al0t” Möllergren, Marius “Mognus” Døving, and Joonas “Metsanauris” Salo. Renault Vitality picked up Paschy90, FreaKii, and Fairy Peak! and immediately drew attention as a new banner for a proven trio. FlipSid3 Tactics, Team EnVyUs, PSG Esports, exceL, and Fnatic rounded out the bracket, giving Europe a mix of long running organizations and promotion tournament survivors.
Old Spice, State Farm, Snickers, and Mobil 1 returned as headline sponsors. Twitch remained the primary broadcast partner. For fans at home, Season 5 Europe looked like a maturing sports product rather than an experiment, with consistent studio presentation and a fixed cast of commentators, analysts, and desk host that mirrored North America.
Vitality’s Surge and Gale Force’s Response
By early April, the official Rocket League blog was already calling Season 5 “in full swing” and warning that the fight for European seeds was tightening. Through three weeks of league play Renault Vitality were the story. Under their new banner, Fairy Peak!, FreaKii, and Paschy90 rattled off shutout wins and sat at the top of the table during their bye week, with the league office describing them as “revitalized” and pointing to Fairy Peak!’s clinical play as the backbone of the team.
Gale Force did not let the early headlines stay with Vitality for long. The same official preview that praised Vitality also noted that Gale Force had finished week three with a three and zero record, keeping pace with the new leaders and setting up a week five showdown between the only two undefeated European teams.
Behind those two, Season 5 Europe offered exactly the kind of parity that had marked earlier RLCS years. PSG’s roster of Bluey, Chausette45, and Ferra wobbled through the first half of the schedule but remained within reach of the top six. FlipSid3 Tactics, with Kuxir97, Miztik, and Yukeo, alternated between strong weeks and stumbles. Team EnVyUs, newly promoted through the Season 4 promotion tournament, looked dangerous but inconsistent, while exceL and Fnatic spent the season fighting to escape the bottom of the table.
Week five gave Europe one of its stranger RLCS Sundays. With the playoff picture still in flux, a power outage at the RLCS studio cut off the stream and forced the league to postpone the final four matches of the day. The official communication, preserved in live discussion threads on Reddit, told fans that the remaining league fixtures would be completed on Thursday, with Fnatic already holding a one game advantage in their series against Team EnVy thanks to a completed first game before the lights went out.
When the final scores were in, Gale Force topped the table at six wins and one loss with an 18–10 game record. CompLexity and Renault Vitality tied on series at five and two, with Complexity edging into second place on game differential. FlipSid3 Tactics settled into fourth at four and three, Team EnVy and PSG claimed the last two regional championship spots at three and four, and exceL and Fnatic finished at one and six, relegated to the promotion tournament.
The standings gave Gale Force and CompLexity a direct bye into the regional semifinals. Vitality, FlipSid3, EnVy, and PSG would have to fight through the quarterfinals for the right to play them.
The Regional Championship Bracket
The European Regional Championship took place on April 22, 2018, as a one day, single elimination online event. Six teams entered. Every series, from the first quarterfinal to the grand final, was best of seven. The top four finishers would qualify for the Season 5 World Championship, and all six would retain their place in RLCS Season 6.
Bracket graphics and match threads from the day capture a clean, compact layout. FlipSid3 Tactics and Team EnVy met in the first quarterfinal. Renault Vitality and PSG Esports squared off in the other. Gale Force and CompLexity sat in the semifinal slots above them, awaiting the winners.
The results table on Rocket League Esports Wiki tells a simple story. In the first quarterfinal, EnVy defeated FlipSid3 four games to two, ending the green team’s bid to return to the top of Europe. In the second, Renault Vitality also won four to two, knocking out PSG and securing their own World Championship berth.
Those wins created a semifinal field that looked familiar to anyone who had watched Season 4. Gale Force faced EnVy on one side of the bracket. CompLexity met Vitality on the other.
EnVy’s Last Push, CompLexity’s Stumble
In the semifinal between Gale Force and EnVy, the Season 4 world champions reasserted themselves. The bracket records show a four to one series win for Gale Force, with ViolentPanda, Turbopolsa, and Kaydop dropping only a single game on their way to the grand final. It was a reminder of the disciplined, possession heavy style that had carried them through the previous year.
On the other side, Renault Vitality put together the most one sided scoreline of the day. Their semifinal against CompLexity ended in a four to zero sweep, sending Fairy Peak!, FreaKii, and Paschy90 into the final without dropping a single game in the knockout bracket. For the former Method players on CompLexity, the loss pushed them into the third place match instead of a shot at the European title.
The playoff format required a separate match for third. Team EnVy took full advantage. Their roster of Remkoe, Deevo, and EyeIgnite beat CompLexity four games to one in the bronze series, locking in a third place finish in Europe and securing another trip to the World Championship.
By the time the grand final began, the four European World Championship teams were set. Gale Force, Renault Vitality, EnVy, and CompLexity would all represent the region in London. The only question left for the regional championship itself was who would wear the Season 5 Europe crown.
Gale Force Finishes What It Started
The grand final pitted the two teams that had shaped the narrative of Season 5 Europe from the beginning. On one side stood Gale Force Esports, first in league play and still riding the momentum from their Season 4 World Championship. On the other stood Renault Vitality, the new organization that had “soared” through early weeks of league play and spent most of the season trading headlines with Gale Force.
The match result on Rocket League Esports Wiki is clear. Gale Force beat Renault Vitality four games to one in the final, claiming the Season 5 European Regional Championship. Counting only the knockout bracket, Gale Force finished the day with eight game wins and just two losses. They were the top European seed for the World Championship and the only team in the region to win both league play and the regional final.
The same database that preserves the bracket and prize pool also notes that Kaydop received both regular season and regional championship MVP honors for Season 5 Europe. For a player who had already reached three straight world finals and lifted the Season 4 trophy with Gale Force, the double MVP added another line to a growing legacy.
Renault Vitality’s second place finish confirmed their arrival as a title contender under the new banner. EnVy’s third place and CompLexity’s fourth completed a top four that blended old guard organizations, new brands, and rosters that had already defined earlier RLCS eras.
Legacy of Season 5 Europe
Within the broader history of Rocket League, Season 5 Europe sits at a hinge point. Psyonix had just raised the overall RLCS prize pool, signed a slate of mainstream sponsors, and settled into a stable format built around league play, regional championships, and an international finals event. The European side of that structure delivered exactly what the league model was meant to produce: weeks of close regular season matches, a defined hierarchy of eight teams, and a single, definitive champion crowned in a playoff bracket.
For Gale Force Esports, the tournament turned out to be their final regional crown under that name. In late May, just before the World Championship in London, the roster signed with Dignitas and continued their run at the top of the esport under a new organization. But in the record books, the Season 5 European Regional Championship belongs to Gale Force, not Dignitas, and to the trio of Kaydop, Turbopolsa, and ViolentPanda who carried its banner.
For Renault Vitality, Season 5 Europe marked the beginning of a long relationship between the organization and high level Rocket League. Their run through league play and their sweep of CompLexity in the semifinals announced that the Vitality name would not be confined to League of Legends or Counter-Strike.
And for the broader European scene, Season 5 confirmed the region’s reputation for depth and resilience. Even as Gale Force stood above the pack, the standings and match threads from that spring show a league where seven of eight teams won at least one series and where five of those eight finished within a two win band in the final table.
When historians of Rocket League look back on the pre franchise RLCS era, Season 5 Europe stands as one of its most complete stories. It began with an official announcement promising a bigger prize pool and another shot at the title for the reigning champions. It moved through weeks of tightly contested league play, a rare studio power outage, and a final standings table that captured the region’s balance. It ended in a one day bracket where six teams fought for four World Championship spots and Gale Force Esports walked away with the last regional trophy the trio would win under that name.