French Rocket League rookie superstar Alexis “zen” Bernier was instrumental in winning Team Vitality’s first regional tournament in almost two years in his RLCS debut on May 14. This comes just a few months after zen finished his year-long competitive ban for competing while underage.
In Feb. 2022, Zen was banned for one year for breaching the Rocket League Championship Series’ 15-year age minimum, with the ban set to start on his 15th birthday.
Ahead of his 16th birthday, zen was then preemptively signed by Vitality, with him making his official competitive Rocket League debut on the team at the Gamers Without Borders charity tournament on Wednesday, May 3.
After dropping just three maps across the entirety of the event to qualify for August’s Gamers8 tournament in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he then made his first authorized RLCS appearance on May 12 in the EU Spring Open, the first of three European regionals.
Despite having a relatively weak start against Quadrant, in which zen had the lowest score in the game, doubters were quickly silenced as Vitality dropped just one map each against G1 and Karmine Corp.
Karmine Corp is the reigning Major champion after winning the RLCS Winter Split Major in San Diego last month. During KC’s successful title run, the team defeated Vitality 3-1 in the group stage, making such a quick turnaround to a 4-1 Vitality win striking proof of the team’s improvement.
From here, Vitality faced Team Liquid in the winner’s final, which they took in a 4-2 clash, followed by a grand final rematch that was remarkably close. While Vitality won the game 4-3, Liquid scored more goals over the Rocket League series, 13 to 10, as all four Vitality map wins were decided by a single goal.
Zen scored and assisted in map one’s 2-1 win, scored all three goals in map three’s 3-2 win, and saved the most shots in a single map across the grand final during game six’s 1-0 win. This put the game at 3-3, with Andrea “Radosin” Radovanović assisting zen’s winning goal with just 70 seconds left on the clock, giving Vitality the regional title.
This result is Vitality’s first regional title since they were crowned the RLCS Season X European champions in June 2021. Yanis “Alpha54” Champenois is the lone member of that team to remain on the current Vitality lineup. Now, he looks to lead a new generation back to the organization’s winning ways.
As for zen himself, he has been heralded as a coming star for two years already and he certainly proved why with this performance.
Following the game, Alpha54 said he didn’t think Vitality was playing at their best despite securing the title. Instead, the team had found “a really good consistency between the players” that led to the title even with just weeks to practice alongside zen.
The idea that Vitality still has room to improve will be a worrying statement particularly for teams outside of Europe as Vitality’s resurgence comes at a time when BDS and Liquid also look on the up while European players have won the last four international tournaments in a row.
Considering the strength of the European region, Vitality not losing a series across the two EU tournaments since zen joined makes them an early Spring Major favorite.
Vitality will next be in action during the European Spring Cup from May 26 to 28, while the North American Spring Cup starts next weekend on May 19.
