How a 16 year old changed pro Rocket League

just a couple months ago the rlcs held one of the most highly anticipated professional debuts in years it's not often these days single player draws so much attention and generates so much hype before even being eligible for the rlcs up and doubles it off his own backboard with a huge redirect and even then with such high expectations it makes it that much easier to just come up short but in this case even with expectations so high this player still exceeded all of them allow me to show you how this all happened how on his rlcs debut a player named Zen single-handedly raised the bar of the entire professional scene before beginning to put in perspective how much of a phenomenon this is the hierarchy of Rocket League skill works like this there's of course the entire ranked ladder all the way up to SSL this is where most of the population sits but beyond that you've got what are called the Grinders people who are definitely better than the average SSL but don't make a lot of money from it above that there's the semi-pro players not consistently making rlcs but definitely up there and ascending even higher you have professional play for a while this was the Pinnacle of Rocket League skills it couldn't get any better than this but after his debut Zen alone has unlocked a completely new tier of skill reserved entirely for just himself let's take a look at how he got here you know how I said Zen had his rlcs debut just a couple months ago well technically that's not actually true back almost three years ago when Zen was only 13 years old he competed in the rlcsx fall Regional 1 qualifiers with a team called space Knights his teammates being Seiko and gaspo the only problem being you can't actually compete in rlcs until you're 15 years old zen was an unregistered player on this team on paper the team was actually Seiko gaspo and Azu but due to a scheduling conflict on day three of qualifiers Azu was no longer available to compete on that day so instead of forfeiting out of the tournament they decided to have Zen play on azu's account obviously against the rules and the thing is they didn't even do that well they were eliminated from the qualifier after winning only two series and less than a day later their Foul Play was caught and the four of them were banned from rlcs competition for a whole year but since Zen wasn't even eligible to compete yet his one-year ban would begin and as soon as he turned 15 meaning he now wouldn't get to compete for another three years hey YouTube today I am excited to watch a player that I actually haven't watched any of but have heard a lot about and that is the player Zen jumping forward a couple years in 2022 when Zen was finally 15 years old and just beginning to serve his year-long ban his performance caught the attention of many viewers in the community for many by seeing him comfortably at the top of the 2v2 leaderboard Zen was already becoming a well-known Prospect in the French rocket League Community but when he started Winning Side tournaments consisting of other top talent in Europe it elevated him to a whole new level of prestige [Music] results were consistent too although he wasn't eligible for the rlcs yet his path was set in stone as team Vitality signed him at the beginning of the 2022-2023 season the starting three players for the season were Alpha rodosin and saizen but with the plan for Zen to replace one of them once he became eligible for the spring split for a team to pick him up so early in order to not take any risk of him being signed to another team it truly shows how valuable he was to this roster which only meant that his popularity would continue to snowball this is the point in time where if you pay attention to Rocket League at all no matter what community you're in you've probably heard about Zen he still wasn't in rlcs yet but what he did in the months leading up to it made him by far the most talked about rocket League player in the world the sequence of events that created that hype is what I'll call the streak starting in February just three months before his rocs debut Zen began to do show match after show match on Johnny Boy's stream which brought in more and more fans the community quickly realized just how insane this guy was never in history has anyone had such consistency with rocket League's most advanced mechanics and his 1v1 show matches were where that all came to light the loss is one of the most mechanical players in the world everyone knows that he's been grinding recently but he just cannot stop Zen stop six one Zen verse now put those sound like the fastest matchup that is possible in the world of rock league right there oh Zen's Fogo to Rebound in the ball off his own back wall fishing to take our present oh my word what's a pre-flip Supple left his car so quickly Not only was Zen beating some of the best 1v1 players in the world but he was hitting clip after clip on all of them scoring in some of the most unique and impressive ways ever seen his match against raziers three to one against lost also 3-1 apparently Jack 3-0 Moxie 3-1 even on PING disadvantage when playing on na servers not a single player in the world could take him down we didn't do that I'm afraid so it was a draw oh it's great from Zayn that's actually ridiculous he sets up a rebound with a ceiling pitch who else on Earth I was he controlled that how was he playing push what is going on as he kept winning show matches he kept getting harder and harder matchups including Yan Daniel and eventually vatera but still his street continued not dropping a single series you know how we say Pros are playing a different game than everyone else well this guy is playing a different game than the pros it's like no one else is going for these types of shots his mechanics are truly in their own tier of skill that no one else comes close to I genuinely think he is just like a year ahead of everybody of like the rocs person in my opinion it would be the most mechanical player without even touching RCS yet I can't I just grabbed a random replay all the replays will do this after winning 11 matches straight Zen took place in one of the most incredible 1v1 show matches of all time Zen vs rawas in a best of seven for the title of Undisputed best 1v1 player in the world in one of a potential seven between ruassa as I think personally robots has the best defense in the world he's gonna be tested in a way today that he's never been tested before though Zen's offense is up there maybe the best in the world for every play on the ball he is not making any mistakes and now he flicks a fourth off corner or west a second goal here to put him in front would be an incredible Advantage for Zen or was starting to get a read on him he stops the flip reset on the goal line looking to get the 50 50 to a safe place and he's also got to run away from the demo well that was just enough birds and he had to be so careful there and he was although Zen began with an early lead as the match went on it was so bizarre seeing how it seemed like in some situations it was impossible for him to score he'd pull off the most perfect mind game possible with a combination of speed power and precision everything literally perfect on his attack and still rawass would pull out the save Wow you went for another air dribble bump but Ruess wrapped himself around it Dodges into the fall and he comes away with possession that is a crazy save and a monster of a flick on the counter attack if you have a chance to go back and watch this series entirely I would highly recommend it more and more viewers piled in to watch this show match live to the point where it peaked over 15 000 viewers making it one of the most viewed 1v1 show matches of all time key position was that a 50 50 they're complained to his net but he got a clean touch I know a clean out play and an open net as well that allows him to just take a moment to control the ball what does he do with that moment he goes all in for a two goal lead stop wave Dash well it sends game to lose now and he doesn't make a mistake in the end defense would reign supreme as rawass closed out game seven so Zen's win streak would end at a total of 11. but it's important to realize that this doesn't just happen in rocket League anymore but Zen managed to pull it off to kick off his 1v1 show match career and score some of the most impressive highlights while he's at it there was just one question left on people's minds at this point would Zen's playstyle actually work in rlcs well as the spring split approached where Zen would have his rlcs debut that answer was about to be revealed and people are one monsters on the board Alpha 54 who puts it out wider a dose and all three players from my tower team Falls in this one alpha just wants to get that one to them and in the end it comes with a calming cup player and Zen does brought it home even though there had been so much pressure to perform to such high expectations Zen kept his cool and helped Vitality to their best result in years too far away from the ball one nil five without an answer then looking to be the odd stuff the chosen one responds stand up into the air earlier as the event went on Zen only heated up to the point where by the finals he was in full form and continued to score highlights at the highest level of competition here goes then again though he really has stepped up this game he's moving pretty quickly oh my goodness he's uncontainable Vitality of course finished the event at first place going undefeated and winning their first Regional in almost two years and it didn't stop there come Regional 2 they appear just as dominant once again winning the entire event and dropping only a single Series in the finals before closing it out after I'm sorry can we just rewind this real quick dude literally jumps in the air to force the opponent and then somehow has the vision to stay in the air for several seconds in order to redirect it top shelf like what do you even call this this sort of thing doesn't even have a name that's how unique it is for the third and final Regional you can probably guess how this goes vitality and Zen continue to dominate the competition and become the first main region team to win all three regionals in a split not even team BDS did that back when they were dominating rlcsx back in 2020. there was a point not long ago where the rlcs meta was shifting towards a very basic boring bunker down play style where you would just score one or two goals and then just stall time until the clock ran what Zen and vitality have done is turn that meta on its head and bring the rlcs back into the Highlight Fest that it once was he changed Vitality from a team that hadn't won an event in almost two years back into a team that could set records again it's hard to overstate how much that actually means because no individual player has been able to make an impact like that in years and for Zen to achieve it on his rlcs debut you truly can't beat a performance like that foreign [Music]

Channel: Wayton Pilkin

Views: 2,517,102

Keywords: rocket league, wayton pilkin, wayton, rocket league esports, rlcs, rlcs world championship, wayton pilkin documentary, rocket league documentary, rocket league zen, rocket league zen highlights, wayton pilkin zen, wayton rlcs, zen rlcs debut, zen rocket league, rl, how a 16 year old changed pro rocket league

Id: Qc38NCxYaMA

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2023