As the Boston Major winners,
Gentle Mates came into
Rocket League 2026 World Championship as one of the dark horses. Despite some early jitters, where a Group Stage loss to Virtus.pro sent the team to the lower bracket of the Playoffs, they have now secured top-eight with a 4-2 win over Man City Esports. Star player, Nassim "
nass" Bali
then went on to win the RLCS 2026 1v1 World Championship over Hisham
"Nwpo" Alqadi. With it all to play for, Gentle Mates will now face EWC finalists
Spacestation Gaming in their next Playoff match.
Coming off their victory over Man City Esports, Oskar "Oski" Gozdowski spoke with Sheep Esports to discuss strength of his team, group games that only counted towards seeding and the biggest threat in the playoffs.
What is your assessment of Gentle Mates’ tournament so far?
Oskar "Oski" Gozdowski: “Bad…to okay…to better. We’re going to be getting better and better as the days go on, especially in the playoffs. So I’m excited.
What is your relationship like with Archie? What makes this one of the best trios you’ve played on?
Oski: Playing with Archie is very easy. He’s a normal guy outside the game which is weird to say but it's hard to find in Rocket League nowadays. He speaks his mind a lot, which I like. I don’t like when people don’t talk at all. With nass, we have a good trio because we’ve all teamed for at least a year together. This is nass and Archie’s first team together but me, Snaski, nass and Archie have teamed multiple times throughout different years. It makes it easier because we know how each other works.
Your series versus Team Vitality, it didn’t feel meaningless but it was a group stage match that just determined seeding. Wildcard was playing for nothing. You already made the bracket, so would you rather have matches that mean more other than these group stage matches where it just comes down to seeding?
Oski: I think it's stupid we have to play for no reason technically, it's just for one seed. I don’t think it should work like that, I don’t really like it. I prefer swiss but it's just how it works sometimes, you can’t really do much about it. It's not meaningless, you just don’t have the same drive to win that series over a series in the playoffs or in the swiss where you know if you lose you’re out, you win you’re through.
Now that you’ve seen the group stage, who do you feel is the biggest threat right now in the playoffs?
Oski: I’ll probably say Karmine Corp. I think they look really good. They 3-0d their group which was considered the group of death. But it's the playoffs so anything can happen, I’m just waiting to play.
Who would you rather play in your next match, Twisted Minds or Spacestation Gaming?
Oski: “I’d rather play Spacestation, but I don’t have a strong preference.”
