Torsos to surpass GarrettG's record of nine RLCS World Championship appearances

At the RLCS 2026 World Championship, Daniel "Torsos" Parsons is expected to surpass Garrett "GarrettG" Gordon’s World Championship appearance record of nine appearances. The record has stood since GarrettG made the final World Championship appearance of his career in RLCS 2021-22, when he competed with NRG at the first Rocket League World Championship in Fort Worth. Torsos will become the first professional to reach double digits in appearances and has done so from an emerging region.

Justin "jstn." Morales, who has orchestrated a career revival in recent years, will be joining his former NRG teammate Jayson "Fireburner" Nunez and three other players on seven total World Championship appearances when he plays his first series in Fort Worth. The 24-year-old qualified through the North America LCQ under FUT Esports, alongside Nicholas "Chronic" Iwanski Carlos "CHEESE." Aguado. He won his World Championship title in RLCS Season 8 with NRG and has become one of North America's greatest ever players. He will be the fourth oldest player to compete at this RLCS World Championship.

Torsos, who is the second oldest competitor at the RLCS 2026 World Championship, matched the record last season in Paris when he qualified with Wildcard. He made his first appearance all the way back in RLCS Season 3 alongside Matthew "Drippay" Den-Kaat and Jake "Jake" Edwards under Alpha Sydney. This was the first World Championship following the addition of Oceania as the first expansion region to the RLCS. He qualified for the next five World Championships with Chiefs Esports Club and Renegades, achieving a top-four at RLCS Season 6. This was the first and only top-four finish the Oceanian region has achieved since its entry into the ecosystem. While many of Oceania’s elite players drifted into retirement when RLCS LANs were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, Torsos remained a mainstay in the region.

Since RLCS 2021-22, he has qualified for four of the five World Championships that have taken place over the course of the Open Era, all with fellow teammate Lachlan "Fever" Aitchison. Torsos needs to play another 23 games to match Alexandre "Kaydop" Courant’s record of games played at World Championship events. The former French World Champion was a serial finalist, making deep runs in the seven appearances he made before the Open Era. While Torsos did make his first top-six finish in seven years last season, he’ll have to do another deep run again in this tournament to come close to reaching Kaydop’s record.

Torsos only narrowly qualified for the event after a pivotal tiebreaker in Oceania. His team Wildcard, crawled their way back to joint-top of the Oceania standings after missing the Raleigh Major early on in the season. They managed to defeat their rivals PWR to the Regional Open #6 title to set up a tiebreaker that had two LAN qualifications on the line (World Championship and EWC) and a guaranteed cash prize of $27,500. Wildcard demolished PWR 4-1 in a tense best-of-seven to secure their place at the RLCS 2026 World Championships, Torsos’ tenth.

Ten players currently sit on five World Championship appearances, but have all retired from professional play including legacy players like Cameron "Kronovi" Bills and Victor "Fairy Peak!" Locquet. Nine players, who will participate in the RLCS 2026 World Championship, will reach five World Championship appearances during the event. These are:

Archie "Archie" Pickthall will surpass Jack "ApparentlyJack" Benton to become the English player with the most World Championships appearances in Rocket League. Mohammed Khalid "trk511" Alotaib continues to lead the chasing pack as MENA’s highest appearance maker, his former long-time teammates Khalid "oKhaliD" Qasim and Ahmad Abdullah "Ahmad" Al-Rubaish retired with two World Championship appearances each. Only three of the players in the list currently feature alongside Torsos and jstn in the top ten oldest players competing at the RLCS 2026 World Championship.

Gareth "Snowyy" Spiers returns to the World Championship for the fourth time having missed out last year when a full team of Spanish imports under FUT Esports qualified ahead of him. William "ejby" Ejby Lorentzen, who will be making his debut this season, becomes the first Danish professional to play at a World Championship since Emil "fruity" Moselund competed at his last in RLCS Season 8, under Team Reciprocity. Torsos and Snowyy are over ten years older than the youngest player competing at the tournament, Zachary "zach" Stone.

João "diaz" Henrique, Cohen "Tawk" Hawco and Mohammad "M7md" Almutairi are the three players in this list who will be making their debut at a World Championship this season. Samy "dralii" Hajji returns for the eighth RLCS LAN of his career having missed out on the Boston Major, when R8 Esports and Twisted Minds qualified ahead of Team Falcons. He has since won the Esports World Cup with Team Falcons, defeating Jack "reveal" LeDuc’s and João "diaz" Henrique’s Spacestation Gaming in the grand finals.