Rocket League Spring 2025 Rulebook

These rules are subject to change and interpretation at the administrator’s discretion. If rules should change, all captains will be notified accordingly.

The Handbook’s General Rules apply to all CEA games, please read them first! However, any direct contradictions mentioned in this Rocket League-specific rulebook take precedence.

I. Season Structure

CEA Spring 2025 Season Calendar

Week 0 is a pre-season week to prepare for the regular season. There will be a captains meeting, followed by a pre-season matchup. The results will not count for standings.

Regular Season:

Week 0 (Preseason)	2/15/2025
Week 1 (Start of Stage 1)	2/22/2025
Week 2	3/1/2025
Week 3	3/8/2025
Week 4	3/15/2025
Week 5 (Start of Stage 2)	3/22/2025
Week 6	3/29/2025
Week 7 (Last Regular Season Week)	4/5/2025
Week 9 (Playoffs Start, RO32)	4/12/2025
Week 10 (RO16)	4/19/2025
Week 11 (RO8)	4/26/2025
Week 12 (Semi-Finals + Finals/3rd Place)	5/3/2025
Overflow Week (If Needed)	5/10/2025
Continentals (Top 2 NA vs Top 2 EU)	https://cea.gg/continentals

CEA RL Season Format Overview

Regular Season: The Regular Season will have two stages, a 4 week swiss, followed by a 3 week swiss bracket. See the Season Format details section below for more details.
Playoffs: Top teams will compete in a single elimination tournament bracket. Some matches later in the playoffs may be cast on the CEA_RL Twitch channel.
The Grand Finals will be broadcast live on Twitch. Schedule and rough timing will be announced at the beginning of Playoffs.

Weekly Structure of the League

Upcoming matchups will be announced each week on Monday.
Each team plays one match per week with results due by Sunday at 9pm Pacific. The CEA observes Daylight Saving Time. If not enough players on your roster are able to make the default match time, contact the opposing captain as outlined in our ‘Match rescheduling’ section to see if they’re able to accommodate a reschedule.

II. Team Rules Overview

Player Eligibility: All Players participating in Rocket League competitions must have access to the game on PC (Steam or Epic), PS4, XB1, or Switch. Only registered team members playing under their own account are allowed to play for a team. An account currently serving a Game Ban deems the player, not just the account, banned. Jumping between accounts to mitigate Game Bans is not permitted.
Team Roster: A team may start the season with 3-8 participants. Rules for qualifications for rostered members can be found in CEA general rules.
1. After the beginning of Regular Season play (Week 1 matches), a player rostered on a team may not transfer to another roster within the same company for the same game without the Game Lead’s approval.
2. Companies with multiple teams playing the same game may have players on multiple rosters as outlined in the general rules under “Team Eligibility.” Being a floater is not considered transferring.
3. After Week 4, removing players from the roster does not free up additional spots.
Floaters: Within the same company and within the same game’s tournament, a player may play on multiple rosters with the following restrictions:
1. All teams must meet the minimum team size without counting any players who are listed on multiple teams.
2. Shared players still count towards a team’s maximum roster size.
3. A player on multiple rosters may only play for one of those teams of each game in any given week. Violation of this rule will lead to forfeiting both matches, and possible disqualification from the CEA.
4. If a company elects to have floaters for any of its games, a representative of the company should inform that game’s Game Lead which rosters are affected, and inform the game lead each week which team that floater will play on.
5. The maximum number of floaters allowed across a company’s teams in a particular tournament depends on the number of teams that company has in the tournament as well as the minimum roster size for that tournament, and is as follows:
  1. 2-3 Teams = 1 Floaters
  2. 4-6 Teams = 2 Floaters
  3. 7-9 Teams = 3 Floaters
6. Each floater may be rostered on no more than 3 teams. Each team may have no more than 2 floaters.
7. Cross-Game policy: Within the same company, players are typically discouraged from playing on teams across multiple games. Doing so may be allowed at Game Leads’ discretion. Other teams are not required to accommodate schedule change because of another game’s default time conflicting with Rocket Leagues.
Half-Team / Joint-Team Policy:
1. A Joint-Team may consist of members from different companies if the following criteria are met:
  1. There are no more than 2 companies represented on the team.
  2. The companies represented are not represented in any other teams in a single game’s tournament.
2. A Joint-Team is subject to all other rules normally surrounding CEA teams.
3. A Joint-Team may have 1 single captain from either company, or may have 2 captains total (1 from each company).
4. Registering:
  1. Two Half-Teams may combine and register as a Joint-Team through the normal registration process without first consulting CEA. Please list both companies on the registration form.
  2. Half-Teams may also consult CEA for help with pairing, and upon being paired will register as a Joint-Team through the normal registration process.
Registration:The Rocket League registration fee will be $120.00 per Team. The captain pays this fee during registration on the CEA website. During the late registration period the fee increases to $150.00 per team.

III. Match Rules

Game Mode: Soccar, 3v3, no modified mutators (default settings only)
Match Winner: The winner is the Team that wins the most Games in the Series.
Series Length: Matches will be best-of-five (5) during the regular season. Matches will be a best-of-seven (7) for playoffs and elimination rounds. Do not use the in-game “Best-Of” features, as the lobbies are still buggy. Teams should track the match progress on their own.
Restrictions:
1. There are currently no restrictions on vehicles, camera settings, etc.
2. All standard controllers, including mouse and keyboard, are legal. Macro functions are not permitted.
Home/Away team: Home and Away teams will be assigned weekly.
1. During the regular season, the team on the left side of the Matchup page is the Home team. The team on the right side is Away. During playoffs, the team with the higher seed (#1 is higher than #2) is the Home team.
Lobbies: The Home team will be responsible for creating the private match lobby for the match and sharing its information (name and password) to their opponents. Server region must be in North America. During the Regular Season Stages (Stage 1 & 2), the Home team will select the lobby’s region for the duration of the entire Match. During the Playoff Stage (Stage 3), the Home team will choose the lobby region for the first two (2) games, the Away team for the next three (3) games, and the Home team will choose for the final two (2) games.
Roster/Substitutions: Players are allowed to switch during a Match (e.g. in-between games during a series), with no cap on the amount of times players may be substituted throughout the duration of the Match. Substitutions should only be made between games, only with exceptions when outlined in Technical Issues.
Spectator slots: Spectator slots may be occupied by Casters, CEA representatives and their designees, or players from either team not currently playing. Such players may stream from the Spectator slot. Spectators cannot speak in communications with teammates who are playing in a game, until the game is finished.
Scheduling/Forfeits: The first game of each round will generally begin at the specified time. See [General Rules] in the handbook for rescheduling rules and post in Rocket League > #reschedule-and-forfeit on the CEA discord server if the match is agreed to be rescheduled. Forfeits will be reported to the Rocket League > #reschedule-and-forfeit channel in the CEA Discord server by the team captain.
Arenas/Map Pool: Any standard maps. Portal:Maps – Liquipedia Rocket League Wiki
Score Reporting: All scores will be reported through the Match page on app.playCEA.com. Goal differentials greater than ±4 will not be considered. Thusly, scores should be reported to reflect no higher than a ±4 goal differential (a game won 9-2 should report 6-2; a game won 5-1 should report as normal). Scores that are reported incorrectly (> ±4) will be edited by the Game Lead before publishing the next week’s Matches.

IV. Technical Issues

Stoppage of Play Procedure: A Player experiencing technical issues on either team, or a teammate of such a player, may call for a restart of the game prior to Game of Record (defined below) being established for significant Issues without requiring agreement from the opposing team.
The Player requesting a restart must be experiencing one of the following Issues:
1. A hardware malfunction (e.g. equipment failure)
2. Physical disruption (e.g. breaking furniture)
3. Software Failure (e.g. crashing) or Disconnecting
4. Other extreme or extenuating circumstances (e.g. household emergency).
5. Severe lag (>140 ms ping) if it is suspected that the individual server (not the region) is at fault. If connecting to a new server does not fix the issue, and other players are not experiencing the issue, this procedure should not be repeated.
While pausing cannot occur in a Private Match, the Game may be re-created for these circumstances.
If a Player Issue occurs after GOR is established, the Game may be restarted if agreed to by the opposing team. Otherwise, the shorthanded Team will continue to play out the single Game within the Series until the Player reconnects or the Issue is resolved.
1. A disconnected Player may rejoin at any time. After a disconnect, if the Player cannot rejoin, any other rostered Player from the shorthanded team may join during the Game.
2. If the disconnected Player is unable to join the Game prior to the next Game in the series, the Player’s Team may either substitute another Player from their roster or continue shorthanded.
In the event of a game server crash, the Game Lead will determine next steps.
General Game Lead Decision Tree:
1. If no goals have been scored – remake the game and start again (with full duration).
2. If goals have been scored –
  1. >3:30 time remaining on the clock: remake the game and allow teams to score off of kickoffs to return the score, and play a full game.
  2. <3:30 time remaining on the clock: remake the game and allow teams to score off of kickoff stopping 1 goal short of the intended score, until within ~30s of the time remaining. Then allow another goal to set the score as intended, and proceed as normal from the following kickoff.

Game of Record

A game of record (“GOR”) refers to a game where all players (six typically, five in the case on an intentional 2v3, four in the case of an intentional 2v2, etc.) have loaded in and joined their team, the game clock has been started (no longer reads 5:00), and at least one (1) significant in-game event has occurred (as defined in Section 2 below). Prior to all three of these conditions being met, if a serious issue has occurred, players should stop play and restart the match, or contact the Game Lead to assess the situation. Once a game attains GOR status, the game will be considered as “official” from that point onward. After the establishment of GOR, game restarts will be allowed only by agreement between both teams or with Game Lead approval.
Significant events, any of which satisfies the third condition for establishing GOR:
1. A goal is scored

V. Season Format

Fall 2024 will use the following format for the Rocket League season. It will contain three (3) Stages. For Fall 2024 our sizes consist of: Legacy Group: 9 teams, X_1 = 6, X_2 = 3. Contenders Group: 21 teams, Y_1 = 11, Y_2 = 10. All teams will make playoffs, seeded 1-30.

Stage 1, Regular Season (4 weeks):
1. Description: Stage 1 is all about locating and isolating the best of the best teams and advancing them to the playoffs as early as possible. This is done by grouping teams that have demonstrated recent success and have remained intact season-to-season and letting the winning teams from that group advance.
2. Groups: Stage 1 will be composed of two groups: the “Legacy” group and the “Contenders” group. Legacy will be composed of UP TO the top 16 teams from the previous season (based on playoff results). To be eligible, teams must also return at least 50% of the previous season’s roster. The Contenders group will contain every other team registered for the current season that is not eligible for Legacy placement.
3. Duration: 4 weeks of modified Swiss.
4. Standings: Determined by Swiss points, goal differential, and game differential.
Stage 2, Regular Season (3 weeks):
1. Description: Stage 2 is focused on seeding for Stage 3. Records from Stage 1 are not continued into Stage 2. Stage 2 will maintain its own records for standings.
2. Groups: Stage 2 will have 3 groups
  1. Group A
    1. The top X teams from Stage 1, Legacy group
    2. These teams are secured a seed in the playoff bracket in Stage 3 and will play 4 weeks of Swiss to determine Seeds #1-X_1.
  2. Group B
    1. The bottom X_2 teams from Stage 1, Legacy group, plus the top Y_1 teams from Stage 1, Contenders group.
  3. Group C
    1. The remaining Y_2 teams from Stage 1, Contenders group.
3. Duration: 3 weeks of modified Swiss
4. Playoff Advancement: The entirety of Group A will advance to the playoffs in Stage 3 with seeds #1-X_1. The top Z_1 teams from Group A will advance to the playoffs in Stage 3 with seeds #(X_1+1)-(X_1+Z_1)*. The top ~Z_2 teams from Group B will advance to the playoffs in Stage 3 with seeds #(X_1+Z_1)*-32.
Stage 3, Playoffs:
1. A single-elimination, 32-team bracket based on seeding determined during Stage 2.

Visual Explanation

Animated Explanation: https://youtu.be/EHz5eo6k9ss