The RLC Pro League Playoffs are just around the corner. This Sunday, starting at 11:00am EST, 4pm GMT we’ll be hosting the creme de la creme in an 8 team single-elimination tournament with a $2000 USD (and growing) prize pool. You can catch the action at www.twitch.tv/rocketleaguecentral. Before the matches, I thought I’d warm you up with the tale of the tape for one of the upcoming matches!

#2 Kings of Urban vs #7 Supersonic Avengers

Kings of Urban are the pride of North America, with a league leading 22 and 8 record. Supersonic Avengers, on the other hand, rolled into the playoffs as 4th in EU, but simply cannot be underestimated given their imposing offensive upside. There are some really fascinating statistical interactions going on in this matchup, so I’m going to go straight to the team stats:

So much stands out here, that I want to talk about. First up, the obvious one. These are two refined offenses going at each other. We have the 2nd and 3rd best goal scoring teams in the league going at it in the first round of the RLC Pro League Playoffs, and that’s reason right there to be gargantuanly hyped for this matchup. If you look at the Corsi for these teams (basically the shot differential) you’ll see that we’re dealing with two titans. SA clock in at an impressive 53, which is good for 2nd place. The only team to beat them? You guessed it: Kings at 77.

These teams like taking a lot of shots, but one area where the two teams differ is in the types of shots they take. Kings of Urban rock a 4th overall shooting percentage of 35.8%, whereas Supersonic like to pepper their opponents with shots. Both strategies have proven very effective for their respective teams, who employ a very aggressive pressing style to regain possession in the enemy half. This causes both teams to face very few shots against, and for KoU allows them to attack with precision, whereas the Supersonic Avengers like to do everything at pace, launching volleys of shots against the opposing team to cause disorientation and defensive overcommitments. Also worth noting: Kings of Urban are a very no-nonsense team. They prefer route one play, and are largely indifferent towards passing plays (compared to other Pro League teams), with only 67.3% of their goals assisted, compared to Supersonic, who prefer heaping lots of balls on target while cycling viciously. This generates a 3rd best 76.7% Assists to Goals ratio.

Enough with the team stats, you say? We need to go deeper:

When you bake off the two teams you see a number of similarities. While KoU has a slight advantage in goals scored, you can see that all six players have a refined striker’s touch. The distribution of the save load is rather symmetrical, as are the shots, and the hat tricks. When we look at GAS (see fact 3, here for an explanation on that), again, the two teams are not dissimilar. Were it not for a few fine details I’d say these teams were NA/EU mirrors of each other… but there are some fine details worth noting.

Let me focus your attention on the Shots for a second. They’re pretty close, right? Now shift your gaze onto the shot percentages of each player. At one time Fireburner led the league in shooting percentage. He ended with a 6th best 39.0%. That puts him in a class of his own in this matchup. He’s f#@*(ng clinical. All SA players are roughly at about the same level - that’s nice, because it means that the attack can come from all three team members in equal measures, the problem is that with the shots they take they simply don’t convert as many of their chances.

The second thing we can do is look at the almost identical save count. That looks good for Supersonic, until we realize that they’ve allowed 25 more goals than Kings of Urban. SA has an undisputable offense prowess, but they simply don’t have the same discipline as Kings on the other side of the pitch. Put another way, SA has the 10th best save percentage in Pro League, making defence their #1 liability in this matchup.

KoU can win if they can clear shots with authority, deny the opponent’s forecheck and make SA doubt their system.

SA can win if they play their up-tempo, hyper-aggressive pressing style to perfection.