After being a dominant force in Europe for the last two years and bringing on a rookie player to spice up their lineup earlier this season, Team BDS are now the undisputed best team in Rocket League after winning the Rocket League Championship Series 2022 World Championship.
With their 4-1 win over G2 Esports, not only were BDS crowned World Champions, but they also claimed their first S-Tier event title since the Fall Split Major last December.
The team went through a period of struggle early in the season, replacing Marc “MaRc_By_8.” Domingo in the starting lineup with rookie Enzo “Seikoo” Grondein and shuffling in new coach Théo “Mew” Ponzoni. And, despite the growing pains, the team felt like it was for the better even in the thick of the move because it was done at the tail end of, for BDS, a poor Winter Split.
The French team viewed bringing Seikoo in as a way to “build a stronger structure” around its cornerstone player M0nkey M00n that could better fit on the field with how they wanted to play, which opened up its own challenges for the new coach too.
“[The job] was offered to me kind of as a challenge because there was a young player that is coming in as Seikoo was in his first year of competitive as well,” Mew said. “I took it as a challenge and I was really happy to have a fresh start where there are no rules, because the players don’t know how to play together yet. I’m really happy and it was one of the best and hardest challenges in my life for sure.”
After getting over their initial troubles and meshing together, BDS earned a spot at Worlds as the second seed coming out of Europe and proceeded to crush the competition, only being pushed to a final game one time against French rival Karmine Corp during the first round of the playoffs.
Outside of that single series that went the distance, only FURIA managed to take more than a game off of BDS as they cruised to a 4-1 victory over a G3 team that everyone on the roster wanted to face in the finals from the start.
“For everyone in the team, [the hope] was G2 because we scrimmaged against them a lot when we are both on the server,” Mew said. “Personally, and I think it is the same for them, I think G2 is the only team when we scrim them, I’m like ‘okay, these guys are playing.’ So I really wanted to play against them.”
Their other hope was to face off against Moist Esports, as both teams are tied at 1-1 against each in recent EU Regional event finals, though Moist was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by FURIA.
Following the Spring Split Major in London, BDS also revealed that the team focused solely on playing and mastering a structured, team-centric style of play that would end up being the key to their success. Mew noted that, rather than focusing on being adaptable, they wanted to push every advantage they could get and make teams adapt to them—even if it would occasionally lead to bad strategic matchups.
“We are kinda lucky, but after London, we decided to play one style but master it, and our style just happens to counter that of G2 because we put a lot [of focus] on structure and take our time, and I think G2 is a team that needs explosivity in the game,” Mew said. “You can see against FaZe, a team that is explosive and can jump from anywhere, I think G2 is winning those, but I think they have troubles dealing with you when you take too much time to answer the aggressivity.”
Regardless of the matchup, BDS gave props to their opponents by saying that any team that made it as far as the playoffs had a real shot at becoming World Champions, but now, after a long road, they alone can finally say that they are the World Champions.
While the team was hoisting the trophy, Seikoo was awarded the overall MVP award for the event, while M0nkey M00n was named Defensive MVP alongside the Offensive MVP from G2, Chicago.
