LoL and RL: what makes for a good tournament game? 

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Not all competitive games are esports, but all esports are competitive games. But what makes a great competitive game?

This weekend, the A1 Adria League continues with the A1 Student eChallenge in Rocket League and the weekly tournament in League of Legends. Both games are fan favorites for a reason — while League of Legends is the world’s most popular esports game, Rocket League is a pick-up-and-play hero and a great success story.  So, why not talk about why they’re both interesting and what sets them apart?

Two approaches to the same formula

The two games we’re talking about here couldn’t be more different: while Rocket League is car football, League of Legends is a MOBA. Rocket League can be played solo or in teams of two or three players, and League of Legends is typically played with five players per team (unless you’re trying out one of the alternate game modes such as ARAM).  Both games grip the viewers and are interesting to watch, but for different reasons: Rocket League is easier to understand from the start (score goals, win games), League of Legends requires much more knowledge to understand — and that’s part of its appeal.

While League of Legends features abstract characters with different special abilities, along with defined team roles like jungler, support, or ADC, Rocket League allows you to put a hat on a car, which is otherwise almost identical to any other car on the field. League of Legends is built around structure — set roles, a shifting meta, and a deep competitive scene, and Rocket League is much more similar to real sports such as football.

In Rocket League, reacting in the moment is critical, and its gameplay is much faster from the first second, leading to quicker matches and better pacing. On the other hand, playing League of Legends can last quite a while — in fact, the longest professional match in League history lasted over 94 minutes. Jin Air Green Wings and SK Telecom T1 played the marathon game during the the LCK Spring Split on January 20, 2018

What makes a game good for esports? Mostly the same things that make real sports watchable: clear objectives, steady pace, and enough tension to keep people interested. Rocket League works because it’s basically football with cars — easy to follow, fun to watch. On the flip side, some games struggle because it’s not immediately clear what’s going on. Take World of Tanks: it’s a strategic game with plenty of depth for players, but from a viewer’s perspective, it often looks like tanks hiding behind buildings. That disconnect makes it harder to follow or enjoy if you’re not already invested. If you need a tutorial to understand who’s winning, that’s a tougher sell for casual spectators.

Watch the weekend matches and judge for yourself

Whether you enjoy the chaos of a Rocket League overtime or the drawn-out strategy of League of Legends is up to you, but if you’re curious how these styles play out in action, this weekend’s A1 Adria League tournaments offer a good reason to tune in.

Cyber_Fico wins the EA FC Weekly! 

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The EA FC action has continued over the weekend in the A1 Adria League, with the main tournament in EA FC 25 taking place, and a new champion taking the big win. In addition to the “big” EA FC event, we also saw the culmination of the A1 Student eChallenge in EA FC, with players coming very close to the skills we’re used to seing on the main EA FC tournaments. 

On Thursday, we saw the best four student players compete in the A1 SeC, as an ideal warmup for the big games coming our way during the weekend. Srza and Kontisha played the first semi final, with Srza going through after penalties, and Tome beat Bati in the second matchup of the day. In the big finals, Tome dominated and won with a difference of four goals, for a final score of 5 to 1. This is the second title for Tome, and he will enjoy his €100. 

During the weekend, we had two group stages and a final in the main EA FC competition over three days, with enough matches to really separate the best from the not-quite-there ones. 

In Group A, novo and Cyber_Fico were tied with 10 points after the regular stage, with novo winning the group stage on goal difference. Fika ended in third with 9 points, and plgnn_maksa finished fourth with 5 points. In the B group, MISKO_FIFA had a great run with 13 points, followed by BATI with 10, BACKO_SRB with 9 and MARAC with 3 points. 

The stage was set for the finals on Sunday, where Novo played against Bati and MISKO took on Cyber_Fico in the opening round. Novo beat Bati 2:0 easily, and MISKO dropped Cyber_Fico to the lower bracket after yet another dramatic penalty shootout. The second round of the upper bracket saw novo knocked out to the lower bracket by Misko with a perfect 2:0 score, and Cyber_Fico won against Bati in the lower bracket as well.

After three matches, Cyber_Fico managed to win on penalties against novo, and reached the grand final, beating the six-time A1AL champion. It seems like this only made Fico stronger, because he managed to reset the bracket to 2:2, win a decider match, and grab the number one spot in the Weekly EA FC competition. This means that Cyber_Fico is €400 richer and will be the one to beat later this year at the LAN final, if his luck and skills endure.

This wraps up the action in EA FC Mobile and EA FC. We’ll have another round of EA FC Mobile Weeklies coming later this spring, and the eFootball Weekly is coming our way. We’re saying goodbye to football and looking towards League of Legends and Rocket League, the main games we’re watching in the following days.

EA FC’s yearly cycle and its effect on the esports scene

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EA FC, and the FIFA series that came before it, are famous all over the world for being perhaps the best football games ever made, but interestingly enough, they are also subject to much criticism and “hate” from their own fans. Some of these criticisms are undeserving, but one of them is possibly the strangest in all of esports, and is a case of having to get used to it or just stop playing. We are talking, of course, about the yearly cycle of games.

If you’ve ever watched real football, the game is played in seasons which usually start around October and last into the late spring and early summer, depending on the region. In the off-season, clubs prepare for the next one, new players arrive, and the summer is usually the time for resetting and replenishing. 

The creators of EA FC, EA Games, have realised that this will work great with a game, so we’ve had a new FC title every year for more than a decade. This used to be okay, since the esports landscape of the game was not so developed, and with games being mostly offline it was great to have new players and stadiums every year. As EA FC became a global esport, the appeal changed, and the “reset”  impacts competitive play a lot, most importantly through the Ultimate Team, EA FC’s most popular mode, where players acquire footballer “cards” and create their own lineup. 

As the year goes on, more and more special cards are released, including Christmas, Halloween, Team of the Week, Team of the Season and so forth. Every single of these cards is better in stats than the previous versions, and they culminate in the summer before resetting to regular cards in October in the new game. This reset of the entire game means that players have around 9-10 months of play before adapting to a new game, which always has slightly tweaked mechanics, movement, shooting and other features.

Early tournaments of the competitive year are always weaker in performance than later ones, since the players need to adapt to the game first, unlike League of Legends or CS2, or even fighting games. Even more so, the way Ultimate Team is laid out means that players need to buy new players every year, and more often than not, real money needs to be paid to open more in-game packs and get better players to remain competitive. As the year progresses, more special players mean more in-game coins spent, and the cycle continues. For example, French striker Mbappe had a 91-rated card at the start of EA FC 25, but his TOTY card has a rating of 96, with a total of 165 more in-game stats and 32 more face stats. This means that it’s simply better than the regular card in every way, despite being the same player. 

What could help the game (and the leagues) would be a longer release cycle with a refresh of the entire Ultimate Team mechanic, but that will probably not happen. All we can realistically do is shift our expectations and think about the reset of the game as a fresh page in the EA FC book – there’s some satisfaction that can be had in playing a new edition of EA FC all over again and feeling like you have the same starting point as the rest of the world before finding out that is not the case three games into FUT.

In the A1 Adria League Weekly tournaments, we’re playing the current edition of EA FC, with all of its bells and whistles, limited cards and fancy players. This weekend, the finals of the EA FC are taking place, so keep an eye out for the streams! 

First Weekly is over – Gale wins the EA FC Mobile Weekly 1!

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The weekend behind us was huge, with three separate events taking place in the League. We saw the culmination of the EA FC Mobile playoffs where Gale took the first trophy of the Weekly tournaments, but also watched the first matches of the A1 Student eChallenge in EA FC and the regular EA FC qualifiers. It was an action-packed Easter weekend with many winners, but unfortunately an even larger number of those not so lucky.

EA FC Mobile Playoffs

Our first playoffs of the Weekly tournament series happened across the weekend in EA FC Mobile. Last weekend, we saw the qualifying rounds where players gathered points and were positioned in two groups: A and B. Group A saw Nikolas, TaleTopG, Cola and Shaq advance to the group playoffs after an exciting group stage. TaleTopG, the best-placed player in the qualifiers, managed to qualify for the playoffs, together with Nikolas. Interestingly, the three top players from Group A all had 12 points, so the goal difference was the decider. Since only two players advance, Shaq was left out due to his goal difference being +1, compared to Tale’s +8 and Nikolas’ +4 differences. This is the first-ever time that Shaq missed out on the playoffs. 

In Group B, Gale won the group stage with a total of 10 points, and was joined by Somzi, last year’s A1 Adria League EA FC Mobile winner. Somzi managed to edge out Lazar purely on goal difference, and earned his place in the big finals played on Easter Sunday. 

On Sunday, we saw Gale’s dream run continue as he dropped Nikolas to the lower bracket in the first round before beating TaleTopG in the next round. In the lower bracket, Somzi won against Nikolas but lost to Tale, setting up a big rematch in the finals. Gale once again proved his class and won again in the grand final, securing the title of the A1 Adria League EA FC Mobile Weekly champion. 

EA FC Qualifiers and A1AL SeC

At the same time as the EA FC Mobile playoffs were unravelling, we watched the first and second rounds of qualifiers for the EA FC Weekly, where some of the greatest regional players tried to secure a spot in the next round. There were more than 170 players participating in the two open qualifiers, but at the end of the day, only the best eight regional EA FC players advanced. In the first round, 101 players competed, but Novo, Marac, PLGNN_MAKSA and Bati were the best ones in the end. Interestingly, Novo beat three players from CLA, a notable regional organisation, on his way to the next stage. Bati, a player who used to play in the Student eChallenge, made the next step and proved he can show up on the big stage as well.

In the second qualifier, one of the best regional players, Cyber_fico, secured a big win, helping CLA secure at least one spot in the next stage. He will be joined by misko_fifa, fika and BackoSRB, making Serbia the most successful nation in the qualifiers with four players in the next round. 

The playoffs for EA FC will happen over the weekend between April 25th and 27th. 

The A1 Student eChallenge in EA FC also impressed over the weekend. The current champion, Tome Trnjanac, will be joined by Borna Batisweiler, the third-placed player from last year, Luka Kontek, and Dražen Srzetić. The Student eChallenge playoffs will take place on Thursday, April 24th.

With the league slowly picking up the pace, we’re looking at many more play days before the Weekly events wrap up in mid-June. If you haven’t done so already, apply for the upcoming events in League of Legends, CS2, Rocket League, PUBG or the second round of EA FC Mobile! 

Rocket League Aerials 101 w/ A1AL

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Rocket League is a game about flying cars and football, but many players get stuck before they even reach the “flying” part of the game. Called “Aerials” or “flying”, the mechanics that enable you to fly are a skill pack that any good player must have. They are used to open up the game, allow for better shots, blocks and much more, and are really a fundamental of Rocket League, just like dribbling or jump shots are in basketball.

But, there’s a catch – many players, especially in their early days, struggle with these because they can often feel unnatural, complex and very tough to pull off. That’s why we’re here to help you out. Make sure to apply for the A1 Student eChallenge if you are a student playing Rocket League! 

Why you struggle

In the first hour of playing Rocket League, you probably understood what boost does. If you jump and boost, you’re actually already flying, but controlling the car in air is where it gets tricky. You’re probably confused because the car either spins out, you can’t turn properly, or you run out of boost in the air. Not to mention not being able to aim the ball. 

Trying to force aerial shots early in your RL career isn’t a good idea, since you should really focus on understanding the game well before trying to be fancy. You should try and do a jump shot here and there, but it’s ok to suck at first.

How to start learning 

Please, don’t try and learn in competitive. Go to Free Play and try to kick the ball around. First, try to jump, boost and just fly in a straight line. Then, try and boost jump off of the wall and land properly. After you’ve mastered that (and it will take time), you’re ready for training maps.

These maps are user-created and allow you to try a lot of things. There are dozens of maps for aerial play, so pick the one you feel okay with. These maps will put a more realistic spin on things rather than just having you kick the ball around – for example, there are flying courses, loops and other scenarios. Focus on hitting a slow ball in mid-air first, and then work your way from there. Once you score your first goal, you’ll be hooked.

If you are feeling extra adventurous, try out BakkesMod, which is a mod aimed at helping you get better at the game. Of course, there are numerous resources such as this one and you might have to research a lot before you find a training programme that suits you, but that’s the same in any sport. 

Tips and tools

Get familiar with the ball cam – don’t just leave it on or off, toggle it when you need to.

Adjust your camera, widen the FOV to see more of the field and adjust distance. These options are in the game menu. 

Experiment with the aerial sensitivity toggle in settings, find one that works with you.

Don’t go and copy pro settings right now, you’ll probably feel confused and lost. It’s good to research, watch games and take inspiration, however. 

Apply for the League

After aerial mastery, it’s time to join the A1 Student eChallenge and compete against some of the best student teams in Croatia. Last year’s LAN finals of the Rocket League tournament were very popular with viewers, and we are hoping for more of the same this time around!

 

How much can you earn by playing in A1 Adria League Weekly?

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We know –  everyone reading this does not think about money when playing competitive esports and A1 Adria League, and your primary motivation is to win just for the sake of winning, right? Still, there’s more going on than simply having us shake your hand and say you are great. Every year, we’re trying hard to improve the prize money so teams and players are better rewarded for their efforts in the League.

This year, the total prize pool will be over €40,000, where the Weekly cups will be €10,550, and an additional €3,150 will go to the best teams in the A1 Student eChallenge. The applications are open to anyone interested! 

The prize pool allocation depends on several factors, the most notable being whether the winner is a single player or a team. This is why team sports prizes, such as League of Legends, Brawl Stars, and PUBG, are larger than EA FC Mobile and EA FC prizes. Let’s dissect the prize pools further for each game according to the number of players participating. 

CS2

The most lucrative tournament to win this year is, as always, Counter-Strike. For the weekly cups, we’ve allocated a total of €3,000 in prize money, which translates to €300 per player in the winning team. The second-place team gets €1,000, and the third-place team will earn €500, or €100 per player. 

League of Legends and PUBG

For LoL and PUBG, we allocated €1,500 for each game, meaning that the winners get €800, second-placed teams get €500, and the third-place team gets €200. It should be noted that PUBG is played in squads of four players, with one substitution player allowed. 

Brawl Stars

Brawl Stars is played in teams of three players, and the prize pool for the Weekly cups stands at €1,350, with €600 going to the winners, €450 to the second-placed team and €300 to the third-placed team. 

EA FC Mobile

EA’s mobile football simulator has proven to be a popular choice in the A1 Adria League. It’s the only title that will have two separate Weekly tournaments, one at the start of the Weekly tournaments and one at the very end. Both Weeklies will have the same prize pools, with €800 distributed to the top three players of both events. The winners will each get €400, the second-placed players will receive €250 each, and the third-place players will get €150. 

EA FC and eFootball

For the two “main” football simulators, both globally and in the A1 Adria League, we’ve kept the prize pools the same as with EA FC Mobile. This means that the winner in both eFootball and EA FC gets €400, second place will earn you €250 and finishing third is rewarded with €150. 

A1 Student eChallenge

For our student competition for Spring, € 3,150 will be awarded to the best teams and players in four games: CS2, Rocket League, League of Legends, and EA FC. 

CS2: €1,125 (1st place €500, 2nd place €375, 3rd place €250)

Rocket League: €675 (1st place €300, 2nd place €225, 3rd place €150)

EA SPORTS FC: €225 (1st place €100 2nd place €75, 3rd place €50)

League of Legends: €1,125 (1st place €500, 2nd place €375, 3rd place €250)

Applications are open for the Weekly cups, so pick your game and get ready for exciting tournaments across all the games! 

How to apply for the A1 Adria League Weekly cups

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Our last article described the main changes coming to the A1 Adria League this year, mostly tied to the Weekly tournaments and cups, which will replace the Spring season in 2025. The cups will take place throughout April, May, and June and will be exclusively available online.

The Weekly tournaments will take place in CS2, EA FC 25, EA FC Mobile, Brawl Stars, League of Legends, eFootball and PUBG.

To apply for the events, you must head to the Games section of the website, where you will find a list of all games for the season. From there, simply select the game you are interested in.

CS2

Tournament page

Platform: FACEIT

Open Qualifiers: 30.05.2025., 31.05.2025.,01.06.2025.

Playoffs: 06.06.2025., 07.06.2025., 08.06.2025.

CS2 will have three open qualifiers, and the winner of each qualifier will advance to the next stage, along with one directly invited team.

To apply, simply select the SIGN UP link next to the cup you would like to compete in, which will lead you to our official FACEIT tournament page. From there, you will be able to join the tournament, view the brackets and participants and read through the rules, but we are sure that seasoned CS2 players will be very familiar with the way FACEIT works.

 

EA SPORTS FC 25

Tournament page

Platform: Toornament

Open Qualifiers: 19.04.2025. and 20.04.2025.

Group Stage: 25.04.2025., and 26.04.2025.

Finals: 27.04.2025.

Similar to CS2, EA FC will have open qualifiers and playoffs. For EA FC, we have prepared two rounds of open qualifiers, and eight best players will advance to the playoffs from each of the qualifiers.

To apply for the EA FC tournaments, click the SIGN UP link which will lead you to the Toornament website. There, you should log into your Toornament account (or create a new one if you do not have it), which will allow you to connect to the platform and register for the qualifier.

 

EA FC Mobile

Tournament page

Platform: Discord

First Weekly open qualifiers: 11.04.2025, 12.04.2025.,13.04.2025.

First Weekly group stage: 18.04.2025 and 19.04.2025.

First Weekly playoffs: 20.04.2025.

Second Weekly open qualifiers: 05.06.2025., 06.06.2025., 07.06.2025.

Second Weekly group stage: 13.06.2025., and 14.06.2025.

Second Weekly playoffs: 15.06.2025.

EA FC Mobile will have two series of weekly tournaments, which will be the first and last tournaments we will host in Spring. There will be three open qualifiers for the first series, with the best eight players advancing to the playoffs.

Applications for the Weekly tournament is done via Discord. Clicking the SIGN UP link near a qualifier will lead you to our EA FC Mobile Discord channel, where admins will help with any preparation for the matches.

Brawl Stars

Tournament page

Platform: Toornament

Open Qualifiers: 16.05.2025 and 17.05.2025.

Playoffs: 18.05.2025.

Brawl Stars Weekly will take place over two qualifiers, and the best teams from each qualifier will advance to the group stage, and the four best group stage teams will advance to the double elimination bracket to crown the champion.

The Brawl Stars Weekly events are also handled through Toornament, which means that clicking the SIGN UP link will open the Toornament event page where you can apply for the tournament, provided that you already have a Toornament account – create one if you do not have it yet.

 

League of Legends

Tournament page

Platform: Challengermode

Open Qualifiers: 02.05.2025 and 03.05.2025.

Playoffs: 04.05.2025.

League of Legends Weekly tournaments will consist of two open qualifiers, followed by a group stage and a playoff round which will include four teams.

For League of Legends, Challengermode will be used. Interested players will be taken to the Challengermode page where all details about the tournament will be published, along with the ability to contact admins directly through the platform. Similar to FACEIT and Toornament, Challengermode will also provide an overview of brackets and other details about the matches.

 

eFootball

Tournament page

Platform: Toornament

Open Qualifiers: 17.5 and 18.5

Playoffs: 23.5 and 24.5

Finals: 25.5

The eFootball touranment will play out similarly to the Brawl Stars one, with two open qualifiers followed by a group stage and playoffs. Just like EA FC, eFootball’s biggest competitor, we’re using Toornament as our platform of choice, which means that the application process is the same as with EA FC, simply apply for a qualifier and the Toornament platform will handle everything else.

 

PUBG

Tournament page

Open Qualifiers: 05.05.2025., 06.05.2025.

Playoffs: 09.05.2025.,10.05.2025.,11.05.2025.

The PUBG Weekly tournaments will take place over two qualifiers, with two lobbies of 16 teams for each qualifier. The six best teams from each qualifier advance to the playoffs, together with four invited teams, for a total of 16 teams. Across three playoffs, the teams will compete for points across six maps in each playoff. The team with the most points – wins!

Announcing the A1 Adria League plans for 2025

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After a thrilling LAN final last November and the conclusion of the 14th season of your favourite regional esports league, we are back with more in 2025. This year, we’ve made several notable changes to the tournament structure to improve the overall experience, while not dialing down on the best parts that made the league one of the premier destinations for esports in the region since our first season back in 2017. Since then, many of our players went on to achieve great success globally, the prize pool has steadily increased, and so did the number of titles on offer. Today, we’re taking the next step.

What’s new?

The A1 Adria League had two seasons per calendar year for a long time. The year’s first season was smaller in scope and took place online, while the fall season concluded on the Reboot InfoGamer in November as a large LAN event. To streamline the year for players and teams and increase the league’s overall quality, we are happy to announce an evolution of the dual-season format, called the A1 Adria League Weekly. For players and teams, nothing grand will change: there will still be dozens of matches to be played during spring in several games and rewards to earn for both individuals and teams. The new format aims to build on our past experiences and successes while responding to the feedback of the players and the community and putting a greater focus on the LAN finals later in the year. The Weekly tournaments will still serve as proving grounds for the ‘big’ season later in the year, albeit with a new name and a slightly tweaked format.

We are also happy to continue investing in the A1 Adria League Student eChallenge (A1 SeC), our student-focused esports competition, which will be featured in both the spring and fall tournaments in 2025. The A1 SeC has been a staple of the League since its inception, and we’re incredibly happy to keep the student competitions through both the Weekly tournaments and the 15th season.

The total prize pool for the Weekly tournaments will be €13,700, with €10,550 divided between the best teams and players of the regular tournaments and €3,150 going to the A1 SeC.

We’re starting things off in early April, and the weekly events will last until mid-June.

What games will be played?

While shuffling things around, we’re sticking to some known favourites for the Weekly tournaments. For the Weekly tournaments, players will compete in EA SPORTS FC Mobile (EA FC Mobile) as well as the regular EA SPORTS FC (EA FC), League of Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Brawl Stars, eFootball: PES and Counter-Strike 2. The selection of games reflects our interest for mobile, PC and console players and aims to provide a good balance between global super hits such as CS2 and LoL and regional favourites EA FC and Brawl Stars.

What about Season 15?

We’re working hard to enhance and improve the overall experience for everyone involved for our milestone season 15, which will still keep the long-standing format we are all familiar with, together with dozens of hours of air time, some of the region’s best players, panel discussions, interviews and audience activities. More of everything is coming our way. We aim to tweak the format once again according to the information we received from both viewers and teams. Still, you can expect the season to feature fan-favourites EA FC and CS2, as well as other games, and we are happy to announce that the LAN finals will take place during the Reboot InfoGamer in November. We’ll share further details and enhancements for the 15th season as it approaches – but it will certainly be bigger and better than any before it.

Looking ahead, we invite everyone to apply for the Weekly tournaments in the mentioned games, and wish everyone the best of luck in the initial competitions!