The Rocket League Championship Series is entering its 10th season with a completely new approach and revamped season format. Psyonix, developer of Rocket League, has announced RLCSX, an open events-based circuit in lieu of their previous two seasons a year format. The tournament will now feature a one-year-long season that will culminate in one big Rocket League World Championship event.
RLCSX will be split into three sessions, Fall, Winter, and Spring, with a prize pool valued at $4.5 million dollars collectively for the entire season. This new approach will allow more teams to compete than in previous seasons, creating high-level competition for each prize. Teams who do consistently well throughout the circuit will be recognized via a points-based system to determine their season end placement. Teams can also compete in what’s called The Grid, 9 weekly tournaments per session to earn an additional $10,000 prize pool and points toward qualifying for the Major. The Fall split will begin with a 32-team format, then dwindle to a 24 and 20-team format for the Winter and Spring splits respectively.
Sign-ups for RLCSX are open now on Battlefy and will close on July 24th for each regions first Regional event. The league will also use Battfly to track results, points earnings, and more in real-time. Each spilt will showcase a different format, with Fall beginning with 2 Swiss-style tournaments where the top 8 teams will then compete in a single-elimination bracket. The first season of this new format will kick off in August 2020 with teams who earned their spot from the previous Rival Series season being automatically seeded into Day 3 of the open qualifiers or auto-invited to Regional events. Broadcasts for the Fall Spilt begin August 1st covering the first European Regional event. Under the subtitle “Moving Forward” Psyonix describes RLCSX as their “first step towards a new, exciting way for players and fans to experience professional Rocket League“