Rocket League Championship Series 2026: World Championship

From Sept. 15-20, the Rocket League Championship Series 2026: World Championship was held at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. 

20 teams from around the world entered the venue and competed to crown a new world champion. Six teams remained on Championship Sunday, which created palpable tension in the arena.

The first series of the day was Team Falcons from the Middle East and North Africa region who competed against NRG from North America. This series, and many others throughout the day had a clear crowd favorite.  The largely North American audience rooted for the “home teams.” 

The crowd cheered on NRG, who beat Team Falcons in last year’s World Championship Grand Finals. Despite having the crowd on their side, Team Falcons won 4-1. 

On Saturday, NRG played a full seven-game series against FUT Esports, ultimately losing before facing Team Falcons on Sunday, a team known for their exhausting playstyle. 

NRG’s Atomic said their team’s loss was due to a lack of commitment to the game plan, not exhaustion. “We lost Game 1, which we could have won, then we bounced back well in Game 2. Then we gave up some pretty bad goals in Game 3, almost made a comeback, and Game 4 went the same way,” he said. “We just didn’t stick to what we needed to, similar to FUT yesterday.”

Following their World Championship win last year, NRG’s tournament results declined throughout this year’s events, a reversal from the team’s normally dominant results since coming together at the end of 2023. 

Atomic said, “It is hard in Rocket League after 3 years together. I think maybe we lose a little bit of the spark that other teams have.” 

Despite the difficulty, Atomic said he still felt all three players could compete at a high level, evidenced by their deep run at the World Championship.

He was happy to get to play in front of a North American crowd, and thanked them for cheering his team on as they tried to defend their World Championship title. “Sorry to the fans, we didn’t get the back-to-back, but thanks for cheering anyway,” said Atomic. 

Following the World Championship’s conclusion, rumors have circulated online about potential roster changes for the team, although none have been confirmed at the time of writing.

Later in the day, Europe’s top seed and the overall top seeded team at the event, Karmine Corp faced Team Falcons in the semifinals. 

The series was a clash between two teams hungry to win their first World Championship. In the end, Team Falcons would come out on top to advance to the Grand Finals, winning the series 4-2.

Characteristically known for their aggression and overwhelming offense, Karmine Corp struggled with maintaining offensive consistency throughout the series. 

The team’s coach, Extra, felt the team succeeded at getting the upper hand early, but a few mistakes snowballed into a loss of confidence. “Once we started to panic a bit, we couldn’t find ourselves at the end.” Extra said he felt that having played Team Falcons days earlier in the group stage of the tournament had no effect on their opponent’s familiarity with their playstyle.

This World Championship marked the fourth in a row that Karmine Corp’s star player Vatira reached the semifinals, but came up short of competing in the Grand Finals. 

Extra emphasized that Vatira isn’t the only player chasing a World Championship title. “Atow has been here for a long time as well, and for me, if they are not now, that means they’re not ready to be it. It’s just as simple as that,” he said. “More time, more experience, more practice, more resolve — that will do it. It will find them when the time is right.”

Rumors began to circulate that Vatira and Atow would join Zen — arguably one of the best players in the world — to form a superteam after his early exit from the World Championship. 

Extra said the rumors did not affect Karmine Corp, and stated “I know my players, and everyone is focused on the team. We all saw the fake rumors, they didn’t have any impact.” 

At the time of writing, rumors are still brewing about a potential superteam forming, but no new rosters have been confirmed.

In the series, Karmine Corp lost Game 1 after a longer overtime, then won Games 2 and 3, before narrowly losing Game 4 at the start of overtime to tie the series at 2-2. 

Despite no team holding an advantage in the series, and only having lost the previous game, Extra decided to call the team’s time-out for the series after the Game 4 loss. The decision confused some observers, but Extra said he felt it was the right call. “It was needed for the players to calm down, because there was a lot of stress, a lot of panic,” said Extra.

He said as the players felt good in their games and began to realize they could win and go to the Grand Finals, “we started panicking a bit, so I had to take the time-out to prevent us from getting even more scared.” After the time-out, the team landed a 2-0 lead in Game 5, but was unable to sustain their offense and lost 3-2. 

Without a time-out, Extra said, “the fact that we lost in the fifth game affected us a bit, and it shows on the results of the last game,” while referencing the team’s 6-0 loss in Game 6.

Although the result was disappointing for the team, Extra said he felt proud of the players for persevering through this season’s obstacles. He added that he was also proud of how he handled things throughout the year as he entered 2026 as a rookie coach.

“It’s not a bad result. It’s not the one we wanted, but it’s still a good thing following everything we’ve been through this season,” said Extra. 

Four North American teams made up the six teams competing on Championship Sunday. Many fans in the venue hoped for one to win, which would have been the first time the North American region won back-to-back World Championships. 

That wish would not come to be, as Team Falcons would become the first team not from North America or Europe to win the World Championship. 

Team Falcons beat Spacestation Gaming 4-0 in the Grand Finals, mirroring their result from a month earlier when the two teams squared off in the Grand Finals of the Esports World Cup. 

Team Falcons will start their title defense at the Rocket League Championship Series Club Championship taking place Dec. 9-13 at the Copper Box Arena in London, England.