Down one series to nil and trailing two games to one in what was the Major-clinching second series, NRG's players started smiling and laughing before game 3. (??) Everyone noticed, the casters, the desk, the viewers, which included my son and me. They kept it up throughout the second series; through game 3, which they won, through game 4, which they lost and which put them on triple-match point, through games 5 and 6, both wins, and through the match-clinching game 7 loss.
I am a neophyte at Rocket League, I have been watching only one year, but to my son, a year or two longer, and to the veteran casters and desk commentators, and to BDS' players, this was bizarre, uncharted behavior. It was all anybody was talking about on the stream. Here you are, your Rocket League head on the chopping block and the executioner about to release the guillotine and you're yucking it up. My son said he got goosebumps. It seemed to tilt BDS. Hell, it tilted everybody! Didn't know, still don't know, what was going on. It was like NRG's coach had administered laughing gas prior to the start of game 3. It was not faux laughter! It was absolutely genuine. Neither was it intended to unnerve BDS but the second series did turn noticeably, if penultimately. BDS was in c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e control up to that point, they had won six straight matches, were leading one series to none and were two wins from winning their first LAN Major. BDS lost three of the next four matches but, lucky for them, regained control of themselves to win game 7. Utterly bizarre, puzzling, ultimately sublimely- played Rocket League.
Congratulations to both of these worthy regional champions.
