Sometimes, age forbids us to fulfill our dreams, and esports followers know this all too well. Game developers and tournament organizers usually set a minimum age to participate in their events. More often than not, this tends to make no difference, but, sometimes, an underage prodigy may see himself unable to prove his talent against the best players in the world. This is exactly what had been happening to Kyle “Scrub Killa” Robertson throughout his whole life before he finally turned fifteen in 2018. Barely one year later, the Scottish phenom has become the youngest world champion in Rocket League’s history. Being only 16 years old, he is now not only a superstar but the hottest prospect that the competitive scene has ever seen. One year ago, he was nothing but a promising youngster. Currently, he is already a legend in his own right. The evolution that Scrub Killa’s career has experienced during this time is almost unbelievable, but his love for Rocket League did not start in 2018. Not at all.  

The beginnings: Getting to play the game he loves

Photo via: Liquipedia. Scrub Killa was not a special guy. He was twelve years old, lived in Edinburgh, and, overall, did what a normal boy was supposed to do. He also played videogames, and there was one he especially enjoyed. Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars was not the most popular game at the time, that is for sure, but, at his young age, Kyle was already somewhat of a veteran. When its sequel, Rocket League, was announced, he did not hesitate to pick it up as soon as he possibly could. Scrub Killa was a good player. Very good, indeed. The game was finally published on July 7. Two months later, he entered his first ever competitive tournament, and on September 27, he reached the finals of the ESL Go4: Europe Weekly 3v3 - Cup 9 together with Philip “paschy90” Paschmeyer and Nico “Stocki” Stockenberger, both considerably older than him. His age did not seem to be a problem for finding teammates that wanted to play with him at the time. As long as he was a good enough player, which he certainly was, his spot in competitive Rocket League was completely secured. He continued to play in 3v3 with a number of different teammates over the next few months, wondering if he could ever be able to make a living out of doing what he really liked. When Psyonix announced the first ever season of Rocket League Championship Series, thus, Scrub Killa initially saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There was a very serious obstacle, however, an obstacle that could only be solved with time. In order to play, you had to be at least fifteen years old. At that time, Scrub Killa was still two years away from the moment of his fifteenth birthday.  

Adaptation: Choosing to take a different path

Photo via: Rocket League. At first, anybody would think that this meant the end of Scrub Killa’s professional career. A twelve-year-old prodigy who saw his hopes of getting to play the game he loves at the highest level shattered by the game developer itself? Initially, the only word that comes to mind is ‘tragedy’. Kyle’s love for Rocket League, however, proved big enough to overcome any boundaries. Not only did he enjoy playing it, but he was also one of the best players in the scene, and Psyonix recognized that they had to do something about it. They invited Scrub Killa and his father to the RLCS Season 1 live finals in Los Angeles just so they could, at least, watch the games from as close as possible. The experience was an amazing one, but, as he stood inside the Avalon Theater watching his old-time rivals compete for the championship, Scrub Killa could not help wondering how it would be like to be in their shoes, to feel the rush of pressure, to be considered a legend. At that tournament, he decided that he was not going to give up. Sooner or later, the stage would be his as well. In order to stay active within the community, Scrub Killa started to do everything that professional players were not forced to do. He started to stream in his own Twitch channel, and, over time, he developed an avid community of fans that, even if he was not competing in RLCS, always rooted for him in other tournaments. Scrub Killa participated in several 3v3 tournaments during his two-year waiting period. As it was before the inception of RLCS, he did not always have the same teammates, but they changed from event to event. Photo via: Twitter. At DreamHack Summer 2017, he went all the way to the semifinals as part of paschy90’s Defusekids, beating teams like Rogue and Aero Kings along the way. Despite his occasional success, though, it was not at 3v3 tournaments where he finally made a name for himself. Instead, he specialized in the mano a mano, the purest way of playing Rocket League: he became a legend in one-versus-one duels. He participated in countless 1v1 events, and he won a myriad of them. During this time, he crafted a legendary rivalry with Victor “Fairy Peak” Locquet, who was considered the best player to ever play Rocket League. At first, Fairy Peak would dominate their matches, but, towards the end of their rivalry, Scrub Killa had perfectly learned how to adapt to the French’s playstyle. He was not allowed to compete at RLCS, but professional players and fans alike started to take good notice of his talent. By the end of 2017, when he was just fourteen years old, he was already hailed as one of the most gifted players in the scene but, still, he could not show his full potential within a proper professional team. On February 18, 2018, he became the Twelve Titans: Year Two champion, overcoming none other than Fairy Peak in the finals. Just a few months later, his life would finally take the turn he had been patiently waiting for.  

Becoming a pro: Difficult decisions and initial doubts

Photo via: DreamHack. May 8, 2018, was a paradigm-changing day not only for Scrub Killa himself, but, as he would later go on to demonstrate, for Rocket League as a whole as well. On this day, Kyle Robertson finally turned fifteen years old. After all this time, he was free. Free to compete in whichever tournament he wanted, free to play for a professional team, and, most importantly, free to choose which team he wanted to represent. At the time, everybody was aware of his outrageous talent, so he probably received more than a handful of offers from top-tier Rocket League teams. Nevertheless, rumors spread that he would form an RLRS mix with Marius “gReazymeister” Ranheim, who he had played with in the past, and try to go all the way to the main division from there. He himself said so in his personal stream when a follower asked him about his plans for his first-ever split in the RLCS. In the end, however, Vitality made an offer that he could not resist. His teammates would be very familiar faces: paschy90 and Fairy Peak themselves. Additionally, he would step right into the RLCS, without having to gamble losing the chance to qualify from the RLRS. In Scrub Killa’s mind, it all made perfect sense, and, actually, he was probably right. The fans, however, had a bunch of doubts surrounding his new team and his new life. Photo via: DreamHack. First of all, would he be able to transfer his unbelievable 1v1 skills into the team game that was top-tier competitive Rocket League? Moreover, would Fairy Peak and Scrub Killa not be too much individual talent together in a single team? Who could make sure, especially considering his lengthy rivalry in 1v1, that their personalities did not clash? Scrub Killa wanted to convince all the doubters that he was, in fact, worthy of consideration. His first RLCS season, however, did not end up being what he had expected at all. Vitality struggled throughout the whole course of the regular phase, ending with a 3-4 record and a mediocre fourth place. In the end, PSG Esports ended up stopping them from advancing to the LAN finals in a series that ended Scrub Killa’s hopes of finally being a player, not a spectator, in the big stage. He had not proved to be the prodigy that he supposedly was, but, at the same time, he knew that success was only a few changes away. That is what Vitality did for 2019. They changed.  

Fulfilling his dreams: New year, new astonishing victories

Photo via: DreamHack. 2019 came around, and paschy90 was released from the team. He had played with Scrub Killa ever since the game was published in 2015, but someone had to go, and he was the chosen one. In his lieu came Alexandre “Kaydop” Courant, former world champion with Team Dignitas. The change was certainly a positive one, and, as such, so were the consequences. This was the mix of players that Scrub Killa needed to succeed. Vitality ended up destroying their rivals at RLCS Season 7: Europe, and he entered his first ever RLCS finals as the European champion. Along the way, he was the second player with the most goals per game (1.00), the one with the most assists per game in the league (0.84), and the runner-up for the overall MVP accolade. His age? Sixteen years old. Surely, the pressure of playing on stage in front of thousands of people at Newark’s Prudential Center would somehow get to him, right? After all, he was far from his twenties, and this was the first big LAN event he attended. Nothing further from reality. Instead, Scrub Killa told ESPN, he zoned into the game pretty easily. "When you hear other people chanting against you or for you, it's pretty insane. That many people are just there to watch you. It's usually when you get on stage, sit there at the PCs and put on headphones, you can zone into the game and sort of forget.” Later on, he simply added: “I cope with pressure pretty well." Photo via: Rocket League. He does not get nervous, crowds don’t affect him much, and he went on to prove it in the finals. He had finally done what, many years ago, in the distant Avalon Theater, he promised himself. Now, he was not going to let the opportunity slip. He was sixteen, and he wanted to be a world champion. An early loss to G2 in the group stage could not lower Vitality’s confidence enough. The rest of their run was, put simply, completely dominant. In the finals, they casually faced G2 once again. How much Carlos “Ocelote” Rodríguez cheered for his team from the grandstand and in social media did not matter. Vitality wanted revenge, and, in the end, they took it. A quick 4-1 series and the trophy was theirs. When they raised it, people did not think about Fairy Peak’s achievement or Kaydop’s three-time world champion status. They thought about the lively, excited teenager they had next to them. They thought about how he was, at last, a true prodigy, worthy of being considered the best in the world. Photo via: Rocket League. He simply could not believe what he had just done. Two years of waiting, being so close but at the same time so far from playing competitively, had resulted in a victory that meant the world to him. One year ago, he was regarded as a future promise by the legends. Now, he himself was a legend, one of the biggest to ever play Rocket League, indeed. When the interviewer asked him about his feelings, he could not help but let his emotions escape from his mouth. “Best feeling in the world, man. We are the world champions, [it is] like a life goal. We have been working hard for the past six months for this, man, I am so happy. I just can't believe it, a dream come true, literally.” Now it was Kaydop’s turn. Scrub Killa stepped away and let his teammate speak, but he continued clapping in disbelief. He looked at the fans, his eyes shining, and at that moment he realized that this is what he lives for. Maybe he did not believe he had just won, but, at the age of sixteen, he does not want to do anything else but keep winning. His whole career is laying ahead of him, and he certainly will not waste it with losses. Beware, because the era of Scrub Killa may just have originated.

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Featured image courtesy of Psyonix. Lucas "LuckyNeck" Chillerón is a vivid esports fan who loves following as many competitive scenes as he can in order to write articles about them. If there is anything you would like to discuss with him or let him know, you can do it at @lucprd.