In Rocket League, your MMR or Matchmaking Rank is what defines your competitive rank. MMR is a number. When you play games online, your MMR climbs with wins and falls with losses. So to go up the ranks quickly you need more wins than losses in a short span of time.
The easiest way to rank up fast in the lower ranks of Rocket League is by focussing on 3 things: 1. Learning to hit the ball with power and accuracy. 2. Learning to rotate and correctly position yourself 3. Clearing corners.
It is not uncommon for many lower-ranked players and beginners to want to rank up quickly. Most players just think they deserve a higher rank or wish to be equal or above their friends, which is understandable.
But there is no real value to attaining a rank higher than your actual skill level. Because the games you will end up playing will be too hard to be fun and you will ruin the experience for the other players at that level. Do you really want that?
In my opinion, it is better to want to rank up quickly so you can get better at the game and have more fun.
Advanced Mechanics are a Trap
Whatever be the case, the usual approach that most beginners take to try and rank up fast is to go into free play and begin practicing and trying to master a bunch of high-level mechanics like air dribbling or flip resets or speed flips or spending a lot of time doing advanced training packs.
No prizes for guessing why this is wrong. Why would you want to start learning how to fly when you can barely manage to drive in a straight line to collect that big capsule of boost?
Contrary to popular opinion, fancy shots and buzz-word-mechanics won’t help you rank up but instead will leave your progress impaired. Plus the frustration of failure will affect the mindset with which you learn and approach the game.
The Right Approach
The reason new players don’t progress as quickly as they can is that they are distracted like a puppy and want to do too many things. To become really good at the game and have fun as you rank up as high as Platinum, all you need to focus on is 3 things.
1. Hitting the Ball
2. Rotation and Positioning
3. Clearing Corners
Allow me to elaborate on each one of these.
Hitting the Ball
It is as simple and direct as it reads. Most bronze and silver players barely manage to hit the ball consistently. This is the first thing you must work on.
Your practice should be focused on.
1. Always hitting the ball with the nose or the front edges of your car (mostly).
2. Reading the ball and learning to dodge at the right time (when trying to hit it).
3. Learning to control the power and direction of your shots.
Once you master this and are comfortable with it then move on to point no. 2
Rotation and Positioning
That’s right. In case you still have noticed, Rocket League is a team game. As you start going up the ranks and playing more competitive games, you will notice an undefined order in the way the game is played.
All the players don’t rush towards the ball. Everyone is not trying to be a hero and score all the time. Teammates pass the ball. For passing to work you need to learn to position yourself correctly and rotate. I’ll do an in-depth post on this topic at some point in the future but for now, the following video by thanovic should cover everything you need to learn and practice positioning and rotation.
Clearing Corners
Defending and clearing shots rebounding from corners is a topic that is rarely covered but is very much of relevance to ranks like bronze, silver, and even gold. Advanced players are so above and beyond this problem, that they don’t even acknowledge its existence.
Ask a player from the lower ranks about the frustrations of hopping, whiffing cars orbiting around the ball that seems to endlessly keep bouncing in a corner and they’ll tell you how often it costs them goals.
This is primarily because sloppy players like me are unable to predict the path of the ball coming into a corner at different angles and even if/when we do make contact with the ball, we barely touch it so it still keeps bouncing in the corner.
Unfortunately, I’m yet to find a good training pack to practice corner defense and clears for lower ranks (if you know of one, please comment down below). I partially solved this problem for me, when I learned to hit the ball with power and accuracy.
A good method is watching replays for analysis, specifically of those games where you struggled clearing or defending balls from corners. This activity over time will help you better understand how the ball bounces off the corner wall based on where it hits at what angle etc.
Another trick is to smack the ball hard into the corner so it deflects towards upfield along lines of the wall. But for that move to sustain and the ball to not get sent back by eagerly waiting opponents, you’ll need to have a teammate ready to take it from there. Another reason to work on positioning and rotation.
Learning Simple Mechanics
Besides these I’d recommend you to learn and practice just two simple mechanics:
1. Half Flip – because its easy to learn and very useful in quickly changing directions
2. Fast Aerial – because it is useful sometimes when defending against aerial shots
That’s it. Just 3 main areas to focus on and 2 simple mechanics can help you quickly climb the ladder out of lower ranks.
Do you agree? Or is there something that you think I missed? Comment down below and let me know.
