Two weeks ago, Karmine Corp beat Team Vitality 4-3 in one of the most punishing semifinals of the Paris Major. On Sunday night, one player from each side teamed up and proceeded to lose one game total across an entire tournament.
Tristan "Atow." Soyez (Karmine Corp) and Alexis "zen" Bernier (Vitality), competing under the team name No Miss Just Fake, swept the first-ever RLCS 2v2 European Open. They finished the event 44-1 across all maps, did not drop a single series, and locked in Europe's first ticket to the inaugural 2v2 World Championship in Fort Worth.
This is the most dominant performance any RLCS event — across any format — has ever produced.
The dominance, in numbers
- Series record: undefeated
- Map record: 44-1
- Playoff goals: 38 scored, 12 conceded
- Sweeps in playoffs: nearly every series
- Prize money: $14,000
- Reward: a 2v2 Worlds slot in September
For context — even in 1v1 Rocket League, where mechanical individual brilliance can occasionally produce season-defining stretches, the closest historical comparison is Nwpo's 2025 1v1 run. And Nwpo dropped games along the way. Atow and zen, in 2v2, against an entire region's pro pool, barely did.
The cross-team angle is the story
This wasn't two teammates teaming up. This was two of the best players from two of the three best 3v3 teams in Europe choosing each other over their own rosters — and then beating their own rosters with brutal efficiency.
Atow is the second man in Karmine Corp's Paris Major-winning 3v3 trio. zen is the highest-rated player on BLAST's last-three-month rating board at 7.60. Their day jobs are direct competitors.
And then the bracket happened.
Round-by-round playoff path
- vs Manchester City (Accro / Seikoo) — 4-0. Man City's Seikoo signing was the biggest non-Karmine EU brand story of the trade window. He never got a game in.
- vs Karmine Corp (Vatira / juicy) — 4-0. Atow swept his own 3v3 teammates. The eventual Paris Major MVP and the team's third member couldn't take a map off the duo that included Atow himself.
- vs Gentle Mates (Nass / Oski) — Grand Final — 4-0. The defending Boston Major champions, on paper Europe's most consistent 3v3 roster, lost a 2v2 Grand Final in straight maps.
Three different elite 3v3 cores. Twelve straight maps. No respect for seeding, mechanical reputation, or recent results.
Why this duo works
The simple version: zen does the mechanical heavy lifting that 1v0 situations and aerial reads demand, and Atow does the playmaking and field-control work that decides 1v1 trades. Their public stats reflect it. zen carried Vitality's seven-series Paris bracket with 26 goals and 23 assists. Atow finished Karmine Corp's six-series Paris title run with 19 goals and 23 assists.
In 2v2, where every player has to be both the finisher and the rotator, both being elite at both is the entire ballgame. Most professional 3v3 duos pick a specialist (a striker plus a defender). Atow and zen don't have a defender. They have two attackers who can both also defend, and the math of that against a typical 2v2 setup is just punishing.
Most 2v2 duos play around their weaker player. No Miss Just Fake don't have one.
The 2v2 Worlds picture so far
With four regional 2v2 Opens producing four world-championship qualifiers — from EU, NA, SAM, and MENA — the global field is starting to take shape. As of this writing:
- EU — No Miss Just Fake (Atow + zen) ✓
- SAM — yANXNZ + swiftt ✓
- NA — TBD (NA 2v2 Open ends June 14)
- MENA — TBD (MENA 2v2 Open ends June 13)
yANXNZ is the same Brazilian who reached the 2025 Birmingham 1v1 Major Grand Final — losing 4-3 to Mawkzy in the first-ever RLCS 1v1 title match. A 2v2 Worlds shot with swiftt gives him a second international title chance in 18 months. SAM continues to be a sneakier 1-on-N format threat than the 3v3 standings would suggest.
The 2v2 Worlds format, reminder
We covered this in our 2v2 format explainer back when the circuit was announced, but worth repeating now that it's about to actually happen:
- Four teams, one from each major region.
- $170,000 prize pool, separate from 3v3 Worlds.
- Single-elimination, all best-of-seven. Two semifinals, one Grand Final.
- Runs during 3v3 Worlds week at Dickies Arena, Fort Worth, September 15-20.
That format means one bad series ends a tournament. For No Miss Just Fake, arriving 44-1 from regionals doesn't carry into the Worlds bracket. They get one knockout match to start, and that's it.
The bigger thing
2v2 was always going to add a new layer to Rocket League esports. The first event showed exactly what kind of layer.
Cross-team duos — two stars from rival 3v3 rosters teaming up because the format demands it — turned out to be the dominant strategy on day one. We expect the next two regional Opens to produce more of the same: pro players choosing each other across team lines, mechanical specialists pairing with playmakers, and at least one upset of an established 3v3 organization by a duo that doesn't exist on any 3v3 roster sheet.
For now: Europe's representatives are locked in, the storyline is bigger than anyone expected, and the September bracket suddenly has a duo to fear before a single shot has been fired.
NA 2v2 Open Championship Sunday lands June 14. We'll be on it.