A guide to winning RL 1v1s

This is my first guide ever on steam. It's about how to win the hardest and obviously the coolest game mode, in the popular car soccer game known as Rocket League.

Who is boost bandit?

I'm glad you asked! I am a 1v1 main in Rocket League. currently Champion 1 / 1033 MMR, and I have peaked at Champion 2 / 1112 MMR, I also have 2300 hours in Rocket League, but that doesn't matter that much.

Well, How do I, the reader win 1v1s?

Unfortunately, Duels / 1v1s are very difficult to learn just by reading a guide, but it doesn't mean I, Boost Bandit, cannot help you.
to explain 1v1s the best I possibly can (so you can decide if you want to embark on the extravaganza and sometimes torture camp often known as 1v1), at a high level, 1v1 is almost like an art form or game of chess, you take your move then the enemy will counter attack, then you will counter attack their move, this sequence should repeat itself until the game ends.
Disclaimer: I am not a high level player

In my own opinion, to win a 1v1 you don't have to have good mechanics, because in 1v1, bigger brain wins 90% of the time.
You don't ever have to hit a double flip reset in a game to win, and I don't just mean for 1v1s, I mean for all game modes.
Yes, they do help out a lot if you can do them, and you should start learning them eventually, however, they just are not necessary to win a game or rank up.


Something King Ranny told me in a coaching session that helped me a lot is "it is better to have 70% chance of not getting scored on, than to have a 30% chance of scoring", which this essentially means, try to minimize the amount of risky aerial plays you make (like flip reset musty flicks, double flip resets, ceiling shots, etc), because you will use almost all of your boost, and if you miss, then your opponent will have a open net, and even if you do happen to shoot it on net, your opponent will most likely end up saving it, respect your opponent more, rather than thinking they are robots made at the dollar store, I'd say respect them as much as you respect yourself, but also understand their key mistakes throughout the game so you can counter attack them easily.

While I cant really straight up say "Learn this mechanic and do this kickoff to win every game", since 1v1s and Rocket League as a whole, is a lot more complicated than even I and most other players understand. I can however give you tips to have a better understanding on how to improve your Rocket League game-play on your own, so don't leave yet.

Tips and tricks

Here's where you might see improvement in your game-play a lot, I will go thru these various tips and hopefully you will come out of this guide being at the very least better than plat!

The first tip I would recommend to absolutely everyone even if you are Supersonic Legend, to review your replays, this makes it so you can learn pretty much forever and at your own pace. I'd say the best time to review your replays, is after you lost a game. Even if the player you lost to was a smurf, I would say that makes your mistakes even more visible than ever!

The second tip is for a bit more targeted towards lower ranked 3v3 players. Stop giving the opponent so much space. In order to defend properly in 1v1, you need to learn something called Shadow Defense. To do this, you are essentially being a shadow of your opponent, by following their moves from a distance and being ready to challenge whenever you want. Shadowing (aka Shadow defense) your opponent is better than waiting at your net or facing your opponent head on because in both scenarios, your opponent is the one in control of what happens. If this is all still a bit confusing, I'd recommend this video by King Ranny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETpnSu2hCaY
The reasoning for me recommending this video above all of the other Shadow defense tutorials in Rocket League, is because its simple to understand and covers some parts that I think are very useful, and I don't see many other creators comment on some of those parts.

Here's a third and final tip from this section, which is to try to guess/know what type of player your opponent is. What I personally try to do is watch the opponent and how they play for about the first minute and a half of the match. Then, depending on how they play, whether its aggressive, passive, or a bit more of a demo heavy play style. After I feel like I know how the enemy plays, for the rest of the game I try to counter it.

If they play aggressive, I let them monkey around with all of their mechanics, such as, air dribbles, flip resets, and ceiling shots. Why you may ask? Well... these opponents unless they are like gc3+, they almost always miss or end up having the ball hit the ground before it even gets near the net, making it a very easy save. Not to mention these type of plays almost always use all of your boost unless you have pro level boost management (which I almost guarantee you don't, even if you think you do), they will be left with at the absolute most 30 boost, while this is a lot, people tend to use boost inefficiently until I'd say around gc2 area, so you get a free goal off of it.

If they play passive, you most likely can take advantage of that, most passive players like to take advantage of your mistakes, so just don't make any mistakes. You might think I'm joking, which I kind of am, but at the same time, I really mean it. We are humans we will make mistakes no matter if its a video game or real life, but you can minimize mistakes a lot to a point where enemies feel like you are making no mistakes. Since they play passive, they most likely play slower, so you usually have time to think about what to do against it, and I will say its a lot easier to fight them if you watch your replays and think about the mistakes you make a lot (trust me I couldn't fight passive players either until I watched my replays).

Finally but definitely not least, well actually I take that back, probably least. Demo chasers, in order to play against these players, you have to stay calm the whole game otherwise they win almost 100% of the time. If you don't believe me, save 2 replays, one where you are happy during that game, and another where you are tilted during that game. Review both replays and try to say with a straight face that you don't play unbelievably stupid when you are tilted or unhappy while playing the game. The other part of winning against these players is dodging the demos/bumps, and also stealing their boost so they can't physically demo you. The third part to winning versus these rats, is to not over commit. If you over commit more than the demo chasing opponent, you either are way too aggressive, or you are just calling them demo chasers because you got demo'd once and you are down bad.

The ending

I know this guide is relatively short, but since its a steam guide, especially one that I doubt that many people will click on, I am not going to spend any more time thinking of tips and tricks for 1v1s. I have genuinely spent like 4 to 5 hours thinking about how to make this guide a actually helpful guide, and I am willing to make another one if this one actually gets support and or lots of comments.

Anyways this was kinda fun to make, and if you are a ranked teammate that is mad at me for doing x amount of mistakes. Review your own game-play and I almost guarantee you make the same mistakes I make, if not more. However, if you are one of my friends or just some random person passing thru I hope this helped you have a better understanding on how to play 1v1 or Rocket League as a whole.

Like and favorite please

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1683772051374335578/B9CB149A4AFFEEDA96CED9828FDB6CDEA6330C4A/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[HotMess]

(-) rep, might b gey i mean not even GC

[Ludunka]

I rate this guide 2 pepperchinos outta three Wall-E movies.

[a']

pog

[greg homus415]

[ron macraf808]

wow this guide is so super man. keep up man. superman

[demon time]

big time winner here just won my first clash of clans tournament thank you

[ted gaunderfaust525]

easy money